Figure 7.
Potential effects of the naturalistic habitat (NH) on cortical and hippocampal plasticity. Based on our previous findings, we propose that exposure to the NH promotes changes in the reorganization of cortical fields in the somatosensory cortex involving the action of BDNF and downstream effectors on synaptic plasticity such as synapsin I,CREB, and GAP-43. It is proposed that the BDNF system would act on sharpening receptive field in the somatosensory cortex. Based on the current results, we propose that the navigation in the NH engages circuits in the hippocampal formation. However, it is not clear at this point whether information reaching the hippocampus is relayed in the cerebral cortex.