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@neuralreckoning@neuromatch.social
Post #1409879
2025-01-23 17:08 UTC
What's the right way to think about modularity in the brain? This devilish 😈 question is a big part of my research now, and it started with this paper with @GabrielBena finally published after the first preprint in 2021!
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-55188-9
We know the brain is physically structured into distinct areas ("modules"?). We also know that some of these have specialised function. But is there a necessary connection between these two statements? What is the relationship - if any - between 'structural' and 'functional' modularity?
TLDR if you don't want to read the rest: there is no necessary relationship between the two, although when resources are tight, functional modularity is more likely to arise when there's structural modularity. We also found that functional modularity can change over time! Longer version follows.
#Neuroscience #CompNeuro #ComputationalNeuroscience
Replies (1)
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@GabrielBena@neuromatch.social
It could be the case that they're entirely separate: functional modules that don't overlap the structural modules at all. We often look for spatial maps in the brain, but the existence of salt-and-pepper maps shows that the brain doesn't have to organise spatially.
It could be somewhere in between, with functional modules partially overlapping structural modules, which would explain why we can observe partial functional deficits after lesions to some but not all areas.
Or maybe the brain isn't constrained to have anything that we would recognise as functional modularity at all? We won't get too deeply into that possibility, but we did ask what are the features we would expect based on our intuitions about modularity?
Open ##3195787