Topic: taxonomy

Understanding communication and information processing in nervous systems is a central goal of neuroscience. Over the past two decades, advances in connectomics and network neuroscience have opened new avenues for investigating polysynaptic communication in complex brain networks. Recent work has brought into question the mainstay assumption that connectome signalling occurs exclusively via shortest paths, resulting in a sprawling constellation of alternative network communication models. This Review surveys the latest developments in models of brain network communication. We begin by drawing

A debate flares up every few years in neuroscience, asking whether the brain is a computer or whether this is “just a metaphor,” or “just semantics.” The question goes back a long way, and has probably been more common in philosophical than neuroscientific circles. But a recent Frontiers special issue raised the debate again, and exemplified its different sides perfectly. One side argues that the brain is a computer because it satisfies computer science’s definition of “computer,” and therefore neuroscience is right to conceptualize it that way (Richards & Lillicrap, 2022). The other side argu

To understand the function of the brain and how its dysfunction leads to brain diseases, it is essential to have a deep understanding of the cell type composition of the brain, how the cell types are connected with each other and what their roles are in circuit function. At the Allen Institute, we have built multiple platforms, including single-cell transcriptomics, single and multi-patching electrophysiology, 3D reconstruction of neuronal morphology, high throughput brain-wide connectivity mapping, and large-scale neuronal activity imaging, to characterize the transcriptomic, physiological, m