Neocortical microcircuits that process sensory information consist of subnetworks of excitatory neurons. Neurons within a subnetwork respond to similar features of sensory stimuli and show highly structured synaptic connectivity, but the development of such microcircuitry is poorly understood. Now, a study by Ko, Cossell and colleagues in the mouse primary visual cortex (VI) shows that although stimulus feature-selective responses are detected in layer 2/3 (L2/3) at eye opening, preferential local connectivity between neurons responding to similar stimulus features does not develop until after the onset of vision.
展开▼
