Plasticity is a fundamental feature of the brain. Strikingly, circuit malleability is strongly elevated in infancy and childhood across modalities. Neural wiring is dramatically reorganized to reflect input from the environment in such “critical periods (CPs)” – restricted times during which plasticity of neuronal connectivity is particularly high. The biological basis for CPs early in life inspires new strategies for inducing plasticity in adulthood. This Research Topic will capture the state-of-the-art for brain rejuvenation across species. It spans molecular, cellular, circuit, and systems-level mechanisms for inducible plasticity, which we term iPlasticity. The topic should be of great interest to both basic scientists and clinicians seeking to enhance both learning and recovery from brain injury or disorders.

Brain function is greatly influenced by experience during postnatal development. Salient CP experiences are etched into neural circuits that persist throughout life. For example, if juvenile animals are deprived of vision through one eye, that eye becomes virtually blind for the remainder of the animal’s life if not corrected during their CP. It is then anticipated that CP reopening in adulthood might enable recovery of impaired neural function or the acquisition of additional brain functionality. Indeed, recent studies have demonstrated the possibility of advancing or delaying CP onset and reopening them in adulthood. Furthermore, neural circuit plasticity seems transiently enhanced after brain injury to facilitate functional recovery, analogous to a “CP” seen in normal development. Therefore, we redefine CP as a limited time window of elevated capacity for plasticity and reorganization of neural circuits throughout life. We aim to deepen our understanding of the development of the brain and mind by pursuing the basic mechanisms of CPs and to induce lifelong plasticity (iPlasticity) by brain rejuvenation.

We invite Original Articles, Reviews, and Systematic Reviews related to “iPlasticity”. Manuscripts dealing with the mechanisms of CPs during development, the means to manipulate and reopen CPs, or the mechanisms of CPs after brain injury are welcome. Examples of subtopics of interest include the following:

• Synapse pruning in the developing nervous system
• Neural circuit development of the sensory systems
• Regulation of critical period timing
• Modeling of neural dynamics during CP
• Development of human language
• Neural circuit changes during recovery from stroke
• BMI-based rehabilitation of stroke patients
• Molecular, cellular, and neural circuit bases for autism spectrum disorder
• Epigenetic mechanisms of neural circuit development

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Frontiers in Neural Circuits

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