Giving scientists access to the connectome snapshot alone is very exciting. The first step to understanding why something is and how it came to be is seeing wha

Giving scientists access to the connectome snapshot alone is very exciting. The first step to understanding why something is and how it came to be is seeing what it is. There are systems at play that form the brain into what it is and we don’t know much about them. The individual neurons — we have a better understanding of, but not the emergent systems. Now that many more scientists will know what the target for these systems is — what is the brain they shape, we can start to understand the control and feedback loops that result in this snapshot state of the brain. And that’s why it’s not a dead end. Just because it doesn’t immediately give some sort of a consumer product, doesn’t mean it’s not a step forward.