Patterned 2-photon glutamate uncaging and local GABA iontophoresis were used to test, in brain slices, whether basal and oblique dendrites possess the biophysical machinery to contribute to the directional selectivity exhibited by many sensory neocortical neurons. On average, Distal-to-Proximal (DP) sequences of glutamate stimuli along individual dendrites produced ~1.5-fold larger responses than the same stimuli in reverse order (PD). Proximal inhibition consistent with spatially-offset receptive subfields, preceding PD but following DP sequences, enhanced directionality to ~2.1-fold.