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Concept
Network neuroscience
Summary
Network neuroscience is an approach to understanding the structure and function of the human brain through an approach of network science, through the paradigm of graph theory. A network is a connection of many brain regions that interact with each other to give rise to a particular function. Network Neuroscience is a broad field that studies the brain in an integrative way by recording, analyzing, and mapping the brain in various ways. The field studies the brain at multiple scales of analysis to ultimately explain brain systems, behavior, and dysfunction of behavior in psychiatric and neurological diseases. Network neuroscience provides an important theoretical base for understanding neurobiological systems at multiple scales of analysis.
On the microscale (nanometer to micrometer), network analysis is performed on individual neurons and synapses. Due to the incredible number of neurons in a brain network, it is extremely difficult to construct a complete network at the microscale. Specifically, data collection is too slow to resolve all of the billions of neurons, machine vision tools to annotate the collected data are insufficient, and we lack the mathematical algorithms to properly analyze the resulting networks. Mapping the brain at the cellular level in vertebrates currently requires post-mortem (after death) microscopic analysis of limited portions of brain tissue. Non-optical techniques that rely on high-throughput DNA sequencing have been proposed recently by Anthony Zador (CSHL).
On the mesoscopic scale (micrometer to millimeter), mesoscale analysis seeks to capture anatomically distinct populations of typically 80-120 neurons (e.g. cortical columns) across different brain regions. Mesoscale analysis allows integration of both microscale and macroscale studies, and thus allows multiscale and structural-functional integration. This scale still presents a very ambitious technical challenge at this time and can only be probed on a small scale with invasive techniques or very high field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on a local scale.
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