Figure 3.
The effect of monocular deprivation is obscured by anesthesia in adults, but not in juveniles. The schematic depicts the experimental design. All mice were right-eye deprived for 4 d prior to testing. In the control group (test/retest), recording was simply repeated beginning about 10 min after the first set of recordings. In the experimental group, barbiturate was given after the first recording, and then recording was repeated 10 min later. The bar graphs show the contralateral bias index (CBI) of the left (dark color) and right (light color) cortex for each treatment group. An effect of a 4-d monocular deprivation, as reflected in the difference of the CBIs of left and right hemispheres, was observed in all groups except the adult post-barbiturate group. Asterisks represent significant paired comparisons (P < 0.01, 3-factor ANOVA followed by Bonferroni test, n = five animals in all groups). When the adult and juvenile barbiturate treatment groups were compared directly, there was a significant age × treatment × hemisphere interaction (P < 0.01, 3-factor ANOVA). This indicates that the barbiturate effect is different in adults compared with juveniles.