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arising from B. V. Atallah, W. Bruns, M. Carandini & M. Scanziani Neuron73, 159–170 (2012)10.1016/j.neuron.2011.12.013; N. R. Wilson, C. A. Runyan, F. L. Wang & M. Sur Nature488, 343–348 (2012); S.-H. Lee et al. Nature488, 379–383 (2012)

Parvalbumin-positive (PV⁺) and somatostatin-positive (SST⁺) interneurons are two principal subtypes of cortical GABAergic neurons that differ in morphology, physiological properties and postsynaptic targeting^,,,. Although GABAergic inhibition is known to be crucial for shaping orientation tuning in the visual cortex^,,, it is unclear whether PV⁺ and SST⁺ interneurons have different roles. Recently, Atallah et al., Wilson et al. and Lee et al. addressed this issue by optogenetically manipulating each interneuron subtype, reaching different conclusions: some investigators found that SST⁺ neuron activation sharpens orientation tuning, whereas PV⁺ neuron activation has little …