A fixed test of 546 MICrONS connections gave no clear mean synapse size relation to motion direction after orientation and neuron controls
We tested whether preferred motion direction adds information about mean synapse cleft size when shared orientation is known. We used one mouse visual cortex volume from MICrONS v1507. A full scan of 303,164,967 connection records gave 143,765 eligible connections among 8,284 manually registered neurons with quality digital twin fits and broad excitatory labels. The planned main test used 546 connections with global direction selectivity of at least 0.25 at both ends. It controlled orientation, source neuron, target neuron, connection count, soma distance and approximate receptive field distance. Only 265 links could inform the fixed-effect estimate. The fitted same-to-opposite direction size ratio was 1.34, with an approximate 95% interval of 0.37 to 4.78. A planned broader test with selectivity of at least 0.15 used 8,095 links and gave a ratio of 1.03, with an interval of 0.92 to 1.15. The intervals account for links that share a neuron. Added checks on single-synapse links, V1 links and consistent fine cell labels gave similar broader estimates. A broader clean-axon check gave 1.18, with an interval of 0.92 to 1.52. The main test was not precise. These fixed tests gave no clear added direction relation to cleft size. They do not establish the absence of direction-specific wiring or synaptic efficacy. We preserve code, a reusable matched extract, source checksums, all test results and figures.
MICrONS · motion direction · orientation · synapse size · functional connectomics · dyadic covariance · fixed effects · reproducible dataset
References
5- usesdoi:10.1038/s41586-025-08790-w
Source MICrONS structural and functional data.
- usesdoi:10.1038/s41586-025-08840-3
Source digital twin properties and prior work on response similarity and synaptic structure.
- doi:10.1038/nature17192
Prior evidence for orientation matching and synapse size in mouse visual cortex.
- doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2894-4
Prior evidence that spatial input arrangement relates to direction selectivity.
- In MICrONS mouse visual cortex, connected excitatory neurons had more similar preferred orientations mainly when their synapses were large (14,412 neurons, digital-twin tuning) sci:sha256:07b8a9b83eea2b7443dc99d29805440aefc0d23414bb9c8959decc534824bd92
Prior SCI orientation and cleft-size study in the same release. Our test asks about an added direction term with a different manual match set.
Cited by
8 publicationsPublic catalog entries on Sciscape.
- usesIn one MICrONS mouse, 847 reviewed pairs had 8–9% less two-way cleft size mismatch than local 100 micrometre shuffles
It supplies the fixed manual function selection and matched graph.
- usesWith target locations given, one-synapse source means cut model feature error by 0.059% in one MICrONS mouse
This study defined the upstream manual-match extract and quality rules.
- usesIncluding contacts from the same source changed the sign of an orientation similarity score on 354 MICrONS targets with tuning assigned by source
We follow its manual-match quality rules and nucleus checks, with consistent fine cell labels and an orientation cutoff.
- usesIn one MICrONS mouse, a fixed model gave 9% higher connection odds for equal than for opposite motion directions within 200 micrometres
We reuse its CC BY 4.0 matched neuron and connection extract. We independently rebuild it from the original sources and test connection presence among candidate pairs.
- usesAt two recorded synapses per pair, two-way links gave no clear decrease in model field center distance in one MICrONS mouse
We reuse its matched MICrONS neuron and connection extract and independently rebuild it from original sources.
- usesWith relay and partner controls, input orientation profiles gave no clear output prediction gain in a ridge test of 1,314 neurons from one MICrONS mouse
We use its full matched neuron and connection extract and its MIT extraction and download code. We independently repeat its complete source scan.
- usesAt a 16:9 field scale, two coordinate rules gave no clear added visual axis alignment term for connections among 3,437 neurons in one MICrONS mouse
We reuse its complete matched graph and extraction code. A new full source scan recovered every selected neuron and link.
- usesIn one MICrONS mouse, repeated connections had 2.7–12.6% lower log size variance than two local shuffles with 20 micrometre cubes
We reuse its fixed manual functional selection and validate its connection counts.