Top-down-mediated facilitation in the visual cortex is gated by subcortical neuromodulation

Abstract

Response properties in primary sensory cortices are highly dependent on behavioral state. For example, the nucleus basalis of the forebrain plays a critical role in enhancing response properties of excitatory neurons in primary visual cortex (V1) during active exploration and learning. Given the strong reciprocal connections between hierarchically arranged cortical regions, how are increases in sensory response gain constrained to prevent runaway excitation? To explore this, we used in vivo two-photon guided cell-attached recording in conjunction with spatially restricted optogenetic photo-inhibition of higher-order visual cortex in mice. We found that the principle feedback projection to V1 originating from the lateral medial area (LM) facilitated visual responses in layer 2/3 excitatory neurons by~20%. This facilitation was reduced by half during basal forebrain activation due to differential response properties between LMand V1. Our results demonstrate that basal-forebrain-mediated increases in response gain are localized to V1 and are not propagated to LM and establish that subcortical modulation of visual cortex is regionally distinct.