Schematics of scientific results.

(a) M1 preparatory activity (blue ellipse) preferentially avoids the subspace that drives arm movements (orange dimension), and instead resides in the ‘null’ subspace (gray dimension). Adapted from [35]. (b) A subspace (orange dimension) of V1 activity (blue ellipse) is communicated with V2, whereas activity outside this subspace (gray dimension) remains private to V1. Adapted from [31••]. (c) Stimulus representations in MT (blue ellipses) are better aligned to the SC readout (orange dimension) when the stimuli are attended (right panel) compared to when they are not attended (left panel). Adapted from [33••]. (d) When M2 is inactivated (compare right panel to left panel), M1 activity (blue trajectory) is preferentially modified within the M1-M2 across-area subspace (orange dimension) relative to the area-specific local subspaces (gray dimension). Adapted from [38••].