Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are in Science and Inquiry

Jan 02, 2013 David Rubenstein rated it really liked it

Shelves: science, biology

A connectome is the sum total of connections between neurons in a brain. Sebastian Seung argues in his book that one's connectome is the essence of an individual. A connectome contains one's memories and personality, and defines who we are. The idea is that at birth, one's neurons are connected with each another at random. As one grows, the brain's connectome changes through the "four R's": reweighting, reconnection, rewiring, and regeneration. These changes are the essence of growing new memori A connectome is the sum total of connections between neurons in a brain. Sebastian Seung argues in his book that one's connectome is the essence of an individual. A connectome contains one's memories and personality, and defines who we are. The idea is that at birth, one's neurons are connected with each another at random. As one grows, the brain's connectome changes through the "four R's": reweighting, reconnection, rewiring, and regeneration. These changes are the essence of growing new memories.

I found the first third of the book to be a bit boring, simply because I was already quite familiar with the subject from other books. Then, the book takes a different tack, emphasizing how important new technologies are to making new discoveries in science. This idea definitely resonated with me. Seung writes,

If you're a scientist who purchases instruments, you could strive for better ones than your rivals by excelling at fundraising. But you'd gain a more decisive advantage by building an instrument that money can't buy.

Seung describes a hierarchy of new technologies, each bringing new understanding to connectomes. He begins with the microscope, of course, but looking at pieces of a brain through a microscope is not very enlightening. The real ground-breaking technologies were various types of stains, such as the Golgi stain. This allowed researchers to identify individual neurons. Later, the electron microscope helped to analyze the structure of neurons, and imaging techniques like fMRI's helped to distinguish functional areas of the brain.
Human Brain Wiring

Seung is a leading researcher in the burgeoning field of connectomics in neuroscience. In the book, he emphasizes a host of new technologies that he hopes will eventually unravel the connectome of a mouse brain. First, new slicing techniques are being developed to peel off extremely thin slices of a brain. These slices can then be scanned by an electron microscope, whose depth of field is limited. The next technology is computer systems for handling massive amounts of data, in conjunction with artificial intelligence (AI) for discerning three-dimensional structure in a set of images. This section of the book is the most interesting, as the reader feels the enthusiasm of a researcher on a leading edge of science.

The last two chapters of the book are interesting speculations. One chapter is titled, "To Freeze or to Pickle?" It concerns new developments in cryonics, in which people elect to have their heads or their entire bodies frozen after death. The idea is that in the distant future it might be possible to revive the connectome in a brain, and thus revive a person from death.

The last chapter is about scanning connectomes to generate simulations of human behavior. Would such a simulation be an automaton, or would it have true feelings? And what, exactly, are feelings? If you enjoyed the movie "Matrix", then you will love this chapter. ...more

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Feb 17, 2013 Cassandra Kay Silva rated it liked it

Shelves: science

I liked the writing in and of itself fairly well, the the premise the author was trying to sell did not quite come off. It's not even that in part I don't agree with him, its more that it should have been better developed and better researched to sway the audience. I just didn't feel that firing spark of joyful discovery that I had hoped to come across with this. ...more

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