Discussion
A challenging #neuroscience problem:
"The synaptic connectome of most animals bears little resemblance to functional brain maps,"
Worms, mice flies: the more we learn about thew structural connectivity between neurons, the more apparent it becomes just how dynamic nervous systems really are. Connectomes aren't really like maps at all - maybe more like guideposts?
Connectomes are frameworks on which to pin further data, such as neurotransmitters and neuromodulators and their corresponding receptors. In addition to being excellent at predicting neural activity: while neural activity doesn't quite predict connectivity, the reverse is true.
Very interesting! This is not what I got from that article - and glancing at the cited ones.
I understood there was little correlation - I thought this means both ways. I'm not entirely sure how this can be asymmetrical? Is, perhaps, the activity the connectome predicts just a small subset (maybe just rare or even artifical?) of all potential activity patterns in a nervous system?
For the worm there's the additional problem that the field has been working with point neurons for decades, ignoring the fact that most neurons in C. elegans have a very clear axon separate from its dendrite. I'd like to see a cleaned up connectome where there are 4 synaptic connectivity matrices and not one (axo-dendritic, axon-axonic, etc.), and I fear I may have to do so myself.
Modeling a connectome while mixing axo-dendritic with axo-axonic synapses with a point-neuron model is only asking for trouble and confusion.
I see. Fascinating!
So you think these issues will be not so prominent in flies, because these mistakes will not be made?
These mistakes have already been made ... see the published literature. We have a student trying to address this – I mean it's not even *our* connectome but, in a simile to someone-is-wrong-on-the-internet, we have to fix this mess.
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