3 ms·
two questions for someone more familiar with this area: 1. what are the immediate applications of having such a dataset? either for the mouse or the brain? 2.
by dalek2point3 13y ago
two questions for someone more familiar with this area:
1. what are the immediate applications of having such a dataset? either for the mouse or the brain?
2. once we have the map, will we also have the technology to identify precisely what neurons are lighting up and how information is travelling during certain actions / responses? in short how far are we from a green / yellow / red Google Maps style traffic map for the brain?
- return0 13y ago1. There are some people who claim to make whole-brain simulations based on earlier anatomical data [1,2]. I don't expect that anyone can make meaningful predictions by simulating the new map, because the neuronal models used are either rudimentary, or do not capture neuronal variability (also non-neuron cells may be involved). However, the analysis of the connectivity between various regions as well as intra-region may lead to accurate predictions about what many circuits "do". 2. Functional imaging is advancing, but it's still very hard to capture large-scale neuronal activity. The current state of the art, calcium imaging can visualize activity from one focal plane, not too many neurons at a time, with slow time resolution, and only at the surface. I 'd say we are pretty far from that as it would require some amazing imaging technology. 1. http://www.izhikevich.org/publications/large-scale_model_of_human_brain.htm http://www.izhikevich.org/publications/large-scale_model_of_... 2. http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/ http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/