A major achievement, for sure. But let's keep in mind that connections are only half of the story.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2024/10/03/fruit-fly-brain-mapped/
#neuroscience
I'd say connections are much less than half the story.
Indeed – and functional imaging is much less than half the story too. Without transcriptomics we are all flying blind. And without theoretical neuroscience we won't make much sense of anything.
What's neat about connectomics is that it provides a framework onto which map activity, resolve ambiguities in activity data without enough temporal resolution, and map receptors and neurotransmitters. It's also dense: complete, all neurons are there, independently of the idiosyncrasies of genetic driver lines.
It's exhausting to argue with grant reviewers about the usefulness of connectomes. That because the connectome changes with circadian rhythms and seasonally and in development somehow then they are useless – it's a tired and wrong argument; it's not like neuronal activity is constant either.
@albertcardona wow whoever chronobiologist said that is very ill meaning😡 @tdverstynen @ekmiller
@kofanchen @albertcardona @tdverstynen @ekmiller we are struggling with this same issue with our circadian clock connectome manuscript. According to one reviewer, unless we functionally characterize the connections, the connectome doesn't add much to the field since these are just "predictions".
@zandawala @kofanchen @albertcardona @tdverstynen @ekmiller I don't work on connectome but I think everyone who's tried to publish a paper has at some point been in the same situation. And of course we all feel bad if our work is criticized. My thinking is that good peer review should point out flaws in the work, but it should also provide solutions, and we should be more critical with our own work.
One of the things I learnt from teaching is that if you comment on a student's work saying "this is bad" the student will come back complaining, and rightly so. If you say "this is not good because of X and Y" and explain what should be done to make it better, than the student will be absolutely fine with it.
Sometimes the solution might just be acknowledging the shortcomings of the technique that you're using, that does not mean it is not useful.
Think for example of single cell transcriptomics; I could write a book about what's wrong with it, that does not mean I think it's completely useless. However, when I use it, I try to be mindful of those shortcomings in my conclusions.
I think every paper should have a limitation section after the discussion, rather than trying to hide those somewhere in the text where nobody's going to look.
That said, there are also bad reviewers who don't take time to write meaningful reviews, and that's where editors should step in.
@zandawala @nicolaromano @kofanchen @albertcardona @tdverstynen @ekmiller
1 Can one say that there is no single connectome, but there are many connectomics?
2 With such many theoretical and technological steps: at which point, one can say connectomics aka overall say omics?
ps: my 2 attempts at jokinomics ;)
@teixi @nicolaromano @kofanchen @albertcardona @tdverstynen @ekmiller
1. Indeed, there are multiple connectomes, even for a single individual because neural connectivity is not static and changes across times and contexts.
2. Connectomics is absolutely the correct term to use IMO as it is in line with all other omics approaches. For instance, we also have multiple transcriptomes for a given tissue and we happily use transcriptomics.
@nicolaromano @kofanchen @albertcardona @tdverstynen @ekmiller I completely agree with you. Acknowledging the limitations of your own work/technique is vital. Constructive criticism is also essential during grant/peer review. But Rome wasn't conquered in a day and we will not understand everything about our research topic in one go. This is where advances in connectomics (or single cell transcriptomics) should be appreciated for what they bring to the table rather than what they don't.