In the brain, the network of neuron-to-neuron connections somehow converts myriad signals into thoughts, memories, and actions. Connectomics, the study of that network, is a huge, active undertaking (see Physics Today, May 2018, page 26, and December 2013, page 20). Before tackling the human connectome, which comprises more than 86 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses, several research groups worldwide have set their sights on a smaller target, the mouse brain. Even so, combining the microscale perspective of individual neuron-to-neuron connections with meso- and macroscale pictures of the links between the brain’s different regions remains formidable.
At École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, researchers with the Blue Brain Project have bridged that gap with a new method to generate a statistical model of the complete micro-connectome of the mouse neocortex, containing 10 million neurons and 88 billion synaptic connections. The method incorporates the current knowledge of...
