Functional development of the visual system in normal and protein-deprived XXXX . VI. Evoked responses in adult @entity35 , protein deprived in early life and nutritionally rehabilitated from weaning.

@entity35 @entity1949
Previous studies have shown an increase in latency of the visual evoked response (VER) recorded from the cortical surface of adult @entity35 subjected to @entity1949 ( @entity1949 ) during pre- and postnatal development. This alteration has been shown to originate mainly from the cortex itself. In the present study the possibility of normalizing such VER alterations by nutritional rehabilitation after early @entity1949 (R- @entity1949 ) was investigated. Male @entity35 were subjected to pre- and early postnatal @entity1949 through their mothers. Nutritional rehabilitation was started from weaning. The @entity35 gained weight rapidly compared with @entity35 subjected to @entity1949 throughout postnatal development but never reached the weight of controls (C) of the same age. Food consumption in relation to body weight was similar to that of controls. Rehabilitation continued until adult age when neurophysiological experiments were performed. The VER recordings from the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) showed latencies similar to those reported previously for adult C and @entity1949 @entity35 . The latencies of onset and first peaks of the cortical response recorded from the surface were increased by 5-6 ms in R- @entity1949 compared with C @entity35 and hence similar to the latencies of adult @entity1949 @entity35 . Intracortical responses to electrical stimulation in the dLGN were also similar to those of adult @entity1949 @entity35 showing an normal onset latency but an increased latency of the peaks of the monosynaptic and late responses compared with C @entity35 . The present results imply that the increased VER latencies noted in adult @entity1949 and R- @entity1949 @entity35 are due to changes installed by @entity1949 during early development since they can not be reversed by nutritional rehabilitation starting at weaning.
