I'm not sure what this article is getting at. Understanding the connections among neurons is not at all like examining the atoms of a smart phone. Connectome re

I'm not sure what this article is getting at. Understanding the connections among neurons is not at all like examining the atoms of a smart phone. Connectome researchers like Seung are more interested in the connections between various systems that have evolved in the brain—systems that we actually understand very well from a behavioral standpoint. We know how a lot of the brain works in precise detail up to a point, especially the vision system. Understanding the biology of how neurons work is also critically important because that's how we'll discover new medicines and technologies that interface with the brain. If we didn't have a complete understanding of how the retina or cochlea work to convert physical signals into neural signals, we wouldn't have been able to create implants to replace these functions.