PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Frederick Federer
AU  - Seminare Ta’afua
AU  - Sam Merlin
AU  - Mahlega S. Hassanpour
AU  - Alessandra Angelucci
TI  - Stream-Specific Feedback Inputs to the Primate Primary Visual Cortex
AID  - 10.1101/2020.03.04.977264
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.03.04.977264
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/09/09/2020.03.04.977264.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/09/09/2020.03.04.977264.full
AB  - The sensory neocortex consists of hierarchically-organized areas reciprocally connected via feedforward and feedback circuits. Feedforward connections shape the receptive field properties of neurons in higher areas within parallel streams specialized in processing specific stimulus attributes. Feedback connections, instead, have been implicated in top-down modulations, such as attention, prediction and sensory context. However, their computational role remains unknown, partly because we lack knowledge about rules of feedback connectivity to constrain models of feedback function. For example, it is unknown whether feedback connections maintain stream-specific segregation, or integrate information across parallel streams. Using selective viral-mediated labeling of feedback connections arising from specific cytochrome-oxidase stripes of macaque visual area V2, we find that feedback to the primary visual cortex (V1) is organized into parallel streams resembling the reciprocal feedforward pathways. These results suggest that functionally-specialized V2 feedback channels modulate V1 responses to specific stimulus attributes, an organizational principle that could extend to feedback pathways in other sensory systems.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.