Talk:S1 long-term plasticity

Reviewer A

This is an interesting review and I only have a few suggestions. 1. In the first paragraph, the sentence beginning with "Historically..." does not seem clear to me. It would be good to expand on it and include a couple of references. 2. In the section "plasticity following sensory input deprivation " the work of Bender et al. 2006 on depression of layer IV to III pathway should be included as it studied depression also in older brains. 3. In the section Cortical vs subcortical plasticity the work of Wallace also registered plasticity of layer IV using chessboard deprivation paradigm. 4. For the section "Structural changes" the recent paper of Marik et al, Plos 2010 ads very exciting knowledge on axonal elongation during deprivation. In the same section, in the paragraph about spine turnover, The sentence beginning "Based on their geometry..." seems unclear to me. 5. In the section General homeostatic phenomena I would add a paragraph about excitability changes (Sun 2009)after deprivation. In the same section, in Upregulation of inhibition, a paper by Tokarski et al.2007, showing increased frequecy of IPSPs in the plastic cortex may be included.

Reviewer B:

This is a good review and covers the bases of rodent plasticity well. The first reviewer caught a couple of additional references that might be added. I have edited minor errata in the document itself and have only a couple of minor suggestions. In the first paragraph, the sentence beginning ‘Historically, the experimental…. ‘ is unclear and should be recast. Under Plasticity following sensory input deprivation, the Diamond et al. reference is missing a year. Under Cortical vs subcortical sites of plasticity the second bullet point starting ‘Continued inactivation….’ is not clear as it reads. Please recast or elaborate. It would also be good to have a final summary paragraph, perhaps outlining briefly what the author sees as some of the next big questions.