It is more than 40 years since Colin Blakemore published his first paper on the postnatal development of the visual cortex, demonstrating the effects of rearing cats in an environment consisting of stripes of a single orientation [1]. This was followed by a series of influential papers in the Journal of Physiology, introducing first the paradigm of reverse lid suture and then examining in detail the factors governing visual cortical development and the conditions required for the maintenance of binocularity. Since then, the primary visual cortex (V1) has become a model system for studies of plasticity and learning processes in the brain. We have built on Colin Blakemore’s work along two main lines of enquiry. 1) Using optical imaging of intrinsic signals, we have provided conclusive evidence not only for the fact that stripe rearing biases the representation of orientations in V1 towards the experienced one but also for experience playing an instructive role in this process. Neurons whose innate orientation preference does not match that present in the environment shift their preference rather than lose responsiveness [2]. 2) We have examined in detail the conditions under which recovery from monocular deprivation and the accompanying amblyopia can be elicited, and we have investigated what amount of daily eye patching can be imposed without incurring either significant physiological changes or amblyopia. We found that recovery from monocular deprivation both in terms of V1 physiology and behaviourally assessed visual acuity depends critically on concordant binocular visual experience. These findings demonstrate that binocular interactions are not exclusively competitive but can also be cooperative[3]. The deleterious effects of monocular eye closure can be prevented almost entirely if patching is combined on a daily basis with about two hours of binocular visual exposure [4, 5]. Under these conditions, only stereopsis and the underlying cortical disparity selectivity appear to be adversely affected to a variable extent [6]. These results have important implications for the treatment of amblyopia in children.