Development of the rat's uncrossed retinotectal pathway and its relation to plasticity studies.

In the normal newborn rat the retinotectal pathway from each eye distributes across the whole area of both the ipsilateral and contralateral superior colliculus. Most of the ipsilateral projection retracts during the first ten postnatal days to produce the normal adult pattern, but retraction fails to occur if one eye is removed at birth.