Sleep reveals dynamics integrating and segregating movement and stimulus representations in V1

Abstract The primary visual cortex (V1) encodes multidimensional representations of ongoing movements, and how these influence stimulus representations without interfering with visual processing is unknown. Here we addressed this question by using extracellular recordings in deep layers of mouse V1 to explore the relationship of movement and stimulus representations to intrinsic local circuit dynamics observed during non-REM (NREM) sleep. Movement and stimulus representations are concentrated in an intrinsic low-dimensional “on-manifold” subspace, where they interact additively. However, stimulus representations are also concentrated in a high-dimensional “off-manifold” subspace where interference from movement-evoked activity is minimized. Off-manifold coding comprises population-sparse stimulus-evoked activity in chorister neurons, revealing an unexpected link between dimensionality, chorister/soloist cells, and sparse coding. Our findings suggest that intrinsic dynamics constrain neuronal activity in V1 and provide a structured substrate balancing the integration and segregation of movement and stimulus representations.