The neocortex comprises six cortical layers that play a crucial role in information processing; however, it remains unclear whether laminar processing is consistent across all regions within a single cortex. In this study, we demonstrate diverse laminar response patterns in the primary visual cortex (V1) of three male macaque monkeys when exposed to visual stimuli at different spatial frequencies (SFs). These response patterns can be categorized into two groups. One group exhibit suppressed responses in the output layers for all SFs, while the other type shows amplified responses specifically at high SFs. Further analysis suggests that both magnocellular (M) and parvocellular (P) pathways contribute to the suppressive effect through feedforward mechanisms, whereas amplification is specific to local recurrent mechanisms within the parvocellular pathway. These findings highlight the non-uniform distribution of neural mechanisms involved in laminar processing and emphasize how pathway-specific amplification selectively enhances representations of high-SF information in primate V1.

新皮质由六个皮质层组成，在信息处理中发挥着至关重要的作用；然而，目前尚不清楚单个皮层内所有区域的层流处理是否一致。在这项研究中，我们展示了三只雄性猕猴在暴露于不同空间频率（SF）的视觉刺激时初级视觉皮层（V1）中不同的层状反应模式。这些响应模式可以分为两组。一组在所有 SF 的输出层中表现出抑制的响应，而另一组则在高 SF 处表现出放大的响应。进一步的分析表明，大细胞（M）和细细胞（P）途径都通过前馈机制有助于抑制作用，而放大是细细胞途径内局部复发机制所特有的。这些发现强调了层流处理中涉及的神经机制的不均匀分布，并强调了通路特异性放大如何选择性地增强灵长类动物 V1 中高 SF 信息的表征。