In this study, we tested hypotheses involving thalamo-cortical and cortio-cortical layers specific microcircuits derived from previous invasive anatomical studies. The thalamo-cortical hypothesis is that FC between the entire thalamus and cortical layers I and VI must be significantly greater than that between the thalamus and other layers. This hypothesis is based on the fact that the regions across the cortex receive inputs to layer I from M-type thalamic neurons distributed in most nuclei of the thalamus and receive cortico-thalamic radiations from layer VI of the cortex [59–64]. Accordingly, we found that FC (estimated from latent neural variables) between the entire thalamus and layer I was indeed significantly greater than between the thalamus and layers II–VI, and FC between the thalamus and layer VI was higher than between the thalamus and layers II, III, and V. In addition, we found the FC between the sensory core thalamus (i.e., VPL) and layers IV and VI of the primary somatosensory cortex, were higher than other layers. This follows from the fact that C-type thalamic neurons in VPL primarily target layer IV in the
