LAUSR

Significance The relation between structure and function is particularly fascinating in neural networks. Direct connectivity measurements in the mouse primary visual cortex show large variability across experimental reports. Can various synaptic connectivity matrices lead to similar firing patterns recorded in the cortex? Vice versa, can observations of firing rate activity constrain possible synaptic wiring patterns? We show that model-based connectivity inference from activity recorded in the thalamus and primary visual cortex reveals hidden ascending order in the strengths of otherwise diverse experimentally reported cortical connections. Thus, diverse cortical connectivity patterns contain mutual motifs that support canonical neural computations observed across cortices and experiments.