In the rat brain, parvalbumin (PV) expression starts on postnatal day 8 and comprises a heterogeneous population of nonpyramidal GABAergic neurons. In the present work, an immunohistochemical study was done on control and experimental rats submitted to enriched environmental conditions between postnatal days 3 to 18 or 3 to 24. Counts of PV+ neurons were made in the dorsomedial and in the ventrolateral regions of the somatosensory cortex. In control animals, PV+ neurons reached a peak on day 24 declining towards day 120. In these rats a peculiar distribution pattern was detected in which immunoreactive neurons are more numerous in the dorsomedial than ventrolateral regions as well in infragranular than supragranular layers and in posterior regions than... |