VIP and SOM interneurons in V1 and S1 form cooperative within-class teams: the more a few nearby SOM neurons fire, the more other nearby SOMs will fire. Same for VIPs. Mechanisms are broadly the same for both populations: sparse and weak electrical coupling through gap-junctions, and disinhibition of team members through the strong mutual inhibition between VIPs and SOMs. Also, VIP cooperativity was reduced by the nAChR blocker mecamylamine. Also, SOMs and VIPs are driven by mostly non-overlapping nearby pyramidals, and at different synaptic dynamics - so their input from nearby pyramidal cell ensembles can drive VIP and SOM teams at different times, and team members at the same time.

The limitation of this study is the low number of neurons recorded simultaneously - in slice recordings only 4 and in vivo only up to 19 VIPs or 12 SOMs in a square field of view of approximately 300um on each side, and in just one plane, meaning many nearby team members were not recorded. So there is not enough information to say how many more than 4-19 neurons are in a team. This interesting experiment would be quite simple with a 3d scanning 2p rig which are common these days.