Figure 8.

Sensory manipulations disrupt refinement of terminal fields. a, In vibrated rats, the large overlap between thin and coarse fibers, normally present only in the neonate, remained (samples from end of second and third weeks shown). Overlap was often strongest in the caudal segments. A weak medial scatter of CTb-labeled terminals also persisted during the first 3 weeks in the majority of vibrated animals. Red, CTb; green, WGA. Scale bars, 100 μm. b, Terminal overlap of thin and coarse fibers is significantly larger in rats vibrated (V) from birth than in age matched (P13–P24) controls (C) mediolaterally (ML; red) and dorsoventrally (DV; green; *p < 0.05; ***p < 0.001, Mann–Whitney).