Cross-modal plasticity has been studied in various animal models. Converging results indicate that early deprived brain structures undergo reorganization and are often activated by other sensory modalities. We demonstrated crossmodal compensation in anophthalmic ZRDCT/An mice (Robert et al., 33rd SFN, 2003, 266.3) with auditory input and activation of visual thalamus and cortex. The present study aims to widen those results adding two animal models: rats from the SJH-RS strain congenitally mono- or anophthalmic; SJH-RS and Long-Evans rats, all born normal but enucleated uni- or bilaterally within the first 72 hours. We used c-Fos immunohistochemistry to reveal structures activated by auditory stimuli. All animals were placed in a noise attenuated chamber the evening before the experiment and had their mystacial whiskers trimmed to limit somatosensory activation. A few controls remained unstimulated while the other rats were submitted to white noise bursts for 60 minutes. C-Fos labeled nuclei were revealed ...