Panel Discussion: Brain-wide connectivity mapping: opportunities and challenges

How can we obtain a coherent view of nervous system structure that spans from the nanoscale to the macroscale? Almost any answer to this question involves highly scalable, multimodal technologies and infrastructure for brain-wide connectivity mapping – end-to-end pipelines from sample collection through data analysis, integration, and dissemination – developed by multidisciplinary teams including neuroscientists, engineers, and computer scientists. However, there are many challenges to integrating data across scales and species – from understanding what can be learned from one brain versus many, to determining how insights from mice and non-human primate studies translate to humans, to optimizing pipelines using automation and AI. This panel brings together experts in neural circuit mapping across scales, techniques, and species to discuss how structural information can illuminate function (and vice versa), how large-scale connectivity data can be transformed into biological and health applications, and what new scientific and technological opportunities might emerge from complete mammalian brain wiring diagrams.

Learning Objectives:

1. Discuss the technologies that are being developed to perform connectivity mapping at various scales

2. Explain the biggest challenges to scaling technologies for brain-wide mapping

3. Describe how brain-wide connectivity maps can be used to advance neuroscience research, technology development, and human health