Neurons with similar tuning more likely to be connected
From the abstract: … we determine synaptic connectivity between nearby layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons in vitro, the response properties of which were first characterized in mouse visual cortex in vivo. We found that connection probability was related to the similarity of visually driven neuronal activity. Neurons with the same preference for oriented stimuli connected at twice the rate of neurons with orthogonal orientation preferences. Neurons responding similarly to naturalistic stimuli formed connections at much higher rates than those with uncorrelated responses. Bidirectional synaptic connections were found more frequently between neuronal pairs with strongly correlated visual responses….
Ho Ko, Sonja B. Hofer, Bruno Pichler, Katherine A. Buchanan, P. Jesper Sjöström, Thomas D. Mrsic-Flogel. Functional specificity of local synaptic connections in neocortical networks. Nature. 2011 May 5;473(7345):87-91. Epub 2011 Apr 10.