RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Projection-specific visual feature encoding by layer 5 cortical subnetworks JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 028910 DO 10.1101/028910 A1 Gyorgy Lur A1 Martin A. Vinck A1 Lan Tang A1 Jessica A. Cardin A1 Michael J. Higley YR 2016 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/03/18/028910.abstract AB Primary neocortical sensory areas act as central hubs, distributing afferent information to numerous cortical and subcortical structures. However, it remains unclear whether each downstream target receives distinct versions of sensory information. We used in vivo calcium imaging combined with retrograde tracing to monitor visual response properties of three distinct subpopulations of projection neurons in primary visual cortex. While there is overlap across the groups, on average corticotectal (CT) cells exhibit lower contrast thresholds and broader tuning for orientation and spatial frequency in comparison to corticostriatal (CS) cells, while corticocortical (CC) cells have intermediate properties. Noise correlational analyses support the hypothesis that CT cells integrate information across diverse layer 5 populations, whereas CS and CC cells form more selectively interconnected groups. Overall, our findings demonstrate the existence of functional subnetworks within layer 5 that may differentially route visual information to behaviorally relevant downstream targets.