Connectomics: It’s not as easy as “Connect the Dots”…

As a kid, my favorite game was Connect the Dots, particularly the ones of SpongeBob characters. I remember the feeling of satisfaction I got after connecting all 20 dots of Larry the Lobster! Buttttt as I turned the pages, they got more and more complex… 50 dots of Patrick Star, 100 dots of Sandy the Squirrel, 1,000 dots of Plankton! Damnit, Plankton! You’ve got to be kidding me!

But as it turns out, adults are playing this game now, too…. The New Edition: Connect 100 Billion Dots.

Sounds crazy, I know. But this is basically the goal of a massive project called the Human Connectome Project.

The Human Connectome Project, or HCP for short, aims to create a comprehensive map of all 100 billion neurons in the human brain, called a connectome. Depending on the neuroscientist you ask, the connectome may also include the synaptome (synapses) and epigenome (epigenetic factors) as well. Allow me to take you back to the basics of Biology 101:

The Neuron

A neuron (nerve cell) is the smallest functional unit of the nervous system. The dendrites take in inputs from the axon terminals of other neurons, and if the inputs are excitatory and threshold is reached (-55 mV), an action potential will propagate down the length of the axon. This will trigger the…