Earlier this week, I went to a talk by Sebastian Seung, a professor of Computational Neuroscience at MIT, at the Commonwealth Club of California. I mention the venue because it ended up influencing the demographic of the audience- many non-scientists and a noticeable majority of elderly individuals. Dr.Seung talked about his new book, Connectome, and the underlying science behind the Connectome. In his book, he defines the Connectome as a map of connections between a brain's neurons and asserts the idea that "your personal identity is encoded in the pattern of connections between your neurons. If this hypothesis is true, then any kind of personal change is ultimately about changing your connectome." Dr.Seung explained the four R's that form the basis of the dynamic nature of the Connectome:
Reweighting means changes in the strengths of synapses.
Reconnection is the creation and elimination of synapses.
Rewiring is the creation and elimination of neural branches.
Regeneration is the creation and elimination of neurons.
Despite my initial reservations about attending this talk, I'm glad I went for several reasons. Firstly, while 'Connectome' has been a buzzword for a few years, it was enlightening to see the developments being made in the field. I, personally, am not sure if I buy the argument that "we are our connectome". I strongly believe that the way our neurons are wired up manifests itself greatly in how we behave, but I don't think it's the sole basis for "who we are". Other factors that I think should be considered are the nature of these connection, the morphology of the neurons, and the molecular cascades that might be unique to one set of neurons and not the other. Thus, if anything, Dr.Seung made me question his science, which we, as graduate students, are trained to do. Secondly, it was interesting to see a scientist communicating to a lay audience, and the analogies he tried to draw between neuronal processes and real-life situations (a particularly interesting one was equating the release of neurotransmitter at synapses to "neurons spitting on each other.") There were times when I felt frustrated by the oversimplified, dramaticized, descriptions of the scientific concepts, and had to remind myself of the nature of the audience; I was perhaps one of a handful of scientists in the audience. By the same token, it also made me think about how I would communicate my science to my friends and family who do not have a science background (something I am trying to do with this blog). As Dr.Seung showed us some, frankly breathtaking, images of the Connectome that he and his lab are trying to build, it was interesting to observe the audience's reactions and it made me think how much the term 'Connectome' and the science behind meant to the people around me. I also found out about a really cool initiative that undergraduates at MIT have undertaken- Eyewire. It encourages laymen to help contribute to research about the connections in the retina. The website has a brief background about neurons and the retina, and then participants can start exploring these connections through a game interface. Its a really interesting concept, and a little hard to describe, but definitely check it out at eyewire.org.
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