{"id":1397,"date":"2011-01-27T12:27:35","date_gmt":"2011-01-27T16:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/ombs\/?p=1397"},"modified":"2011-01-27T12:27:35","modified_gmt":"2011-01-27T16:27:35","slug":"connectomics-is-the-name-connections-are-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/2011\/01\/27\/connectomics-is-the-name-connections-are-the-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Connectomics is the name. Connections are the game."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"st_twitter_large\"><\/span><span class=\"st_facebook_large\"><\/span><span class=\"st_ybuzz_large\"><\/span><span class=\"st_gbuzz_large\"><\/span><span class=\"st_email_large\"><\/span><span class=\"st_sharethis_large\"><\/span><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/w.sharethis.com\/button\/buttons.js\"><\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\">stLight.options({publisher:'0b9142ea-42f7-4b62-947d-dd7654ef4f2d'});<\/script><\/p>\n<p>You are unique, just like everyone else.<\/p>\n<p>Connectomics is the study of the structural and functional connections among brain cells; its product is the &#8220;connectome,&#8221; a detailed map of those connections. The idea is that such information will be monumental in our understanding of the healthy and diseased brain. Sebastian Seung thinks that a complete connectome of the human brain will be one of the great prizes in 21st-century neuroscience.<\/p>\n<p>Efforts to construct brain connectomes are split into two categories: ones that use imaging techniques like MRI, PET, and DT, thus focusing on macroscopic connections or tracts; and those that use\u00a0electron microscopy to map the tinniest of axons (0.2-20 microns in diameter) and individual synapses.<\/p>\n<p>While this may sound daunting, it also seems the obvious thing to do in order to really understand how the brain works. After all, don\u2019t all our memories, personalities, and behaviors dependent on the structure of the brain, down to the microscopic level? So why is connectomics so new? Because the three-pound enigma that can contemplate all things big and small \u2013 from protons and electrons, to planets and stars, to galaxies and the whole universe \u2013 contains more parts than anything we\u2019ve ever studied before. The human brain, we\u2019ve been told, holds 100 billion neurons, with close to one quadrillion synaptic connections total; storing all of that information in one brain would take one Exabyte of data (that\u2019s one trillion Gigabytes).<\/p>\n<p>Jeff Lichtman and colleages at Harvard remain hopeful. They are developing novel tools to automate the tedious task of scanning brain slices. They expect the connectome to reveal differences in the way healthy and diseased brains are wired.<\/p>\n<p>The effort is laudable, considering its scope and ambition, but it begs the question: does all behavior, experience, perception, etc depend on the structure of synapses and connectivity of neurons? More pointedly, does structure determine all function \u2013 chemical and electrical? Sure, larger synapses or more dendritic spines make stronger connections and more efficient transmission of information, but a snap-shot connectome won\u2019t take into account temporal dynamics and enzymatic processes, which play a big role in the active brain.<\/p>\n<p>In his TED talk, Sebastian Seung says that to test the hypothesis that \u201cI am my connectome,\u201d we could try to read out memories from someone\u2019s connectome. But memories are not just synaptic connections \u2013 they are also assemblies of neurons in time or firing sequence. The connectome does not take those into account. And Seung fails to explain how we could actually verify any of those personal memories, since current methods of constructing a connectome involve cutting the brain into thousands of 30-micron slices.<\/p>\n<p>If we could devise some non-invasive methods to construct a human connectome at the synapse level, what ethical issues would we face? Could a personal connectome be the ultimate breach of privacy? Could it redefine or \u201cundefine\u201d what we consider to be normal brains\/mental states?<\/p>\n<p>Constructing a comprehensive human connectome is a great challenge. A bigger challenge would be to model the electrical dynamics of the 100 billion human neurons. But perhaps the most important quest for neuroscience isn\u2019t building a connectome, but learning how neuronal activity <em>creates<\/em> experience.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2849285\/?tool=pubmed\">Neurocartography<\/a> &#8211; Narayanan Kasthuri and Jeff Lichtman via NIH Public Access<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/lang\/eng\/sebastian_seung.html\">Sebastian Seung: I am my connectome<\/a> &#8211; TED.com<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/12\/28\/science\/28brain.html\">Seeking the Connectome, a Mental Map, Slice by Slice<\/a> &#8211; NYTimes.com<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.bu.edu%2Fombs%2F2011%2F01%2F27%2Fconnectomics-is-the-name-connections-are-the-game&amp;layout=box_count&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;font&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;height=65\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none;overflow:hidden;width:450px;height:65px\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You are unique, just like everyone else. Connectomics is the study of the structural and functional connections among brain cells; its product is the &#8220;connectome,&#8221; a detailed map of those connections. The idea is that such information will be monumental in our understanding of the healthy and diseased brain. Sebastian Seung thinks that a complete [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3073,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[587],"tags":[663,698,708],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3073"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}