Nonuniform surround suppression of visual responses in mouse V1

Complex receptive field characteristics, distributed across a population of neurons, are thought to be critical for solving perceptual inference problems that arise during motion and image segmentation. For example, in a class of neurons referred to as “end-stopped,” increasing the length of stimuli outside of the barresponsive region into the surround suppresses responsiveness. It is unknown whether these properties exist for receptive field surrounds in the mouse. We examined surround modulation in layer 2/3 neurons of the primary visual cortex in mice using two-photon calcium imaging. We found that surround suppression was significantly asymmetric in 17% of the visually responsive neurons examined. Furthermore, the magnitude of asymmetry was correlated with orientation selectivity. Our results demonstrate that neurons in mouse primary visual cortex are differentially sensitive to the addition of elements in the surround and that individual neurons can be described as being either uniformly suppressed by the surround, end-stopped, or sidestopped. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Perception of visual scenes requires active integration of both local and global features to successfully segment objects from the background. Although the underlying circuitry and development of perceptual inference is not well understood, converging evidence indicates that asymmetry and diversity in surround modulation are likely fundamental for these computations. We determined that these key features are present in the mouse. Our results support the mouse as a model to explore the neural basis and development of surround modulation as it relates to perceptual inference.