this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2025
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The connectome is a map of individual neurones. The projectome is a map of how larger regions interconnect. Particularly the relative strength of the links.
It's the difference between a detailed road map vs the relative road capacity between countries. It cuts out a lot of fine detail to see larger patterns. Both are useful, but in different ways.
I’m actually stunned that a cell-level map, the connectome, is even possible. Are we saying that every fruit fly has all these individual brain cells in this very particular configuration? I always assumed that major brain organelles might be the same from individual to individual but not down to the level of individual neurons. Am I reading something wrong or are individuals really similar as this?
Provisio, I have not read up on this particular experience.
Fruit flies, as used in labs are not like their wild cousins. They have been bred to be exceptionally consistent, since this makes X-Y experiments easier. If you take genetically identical eggs, and raise them in effectively identical conditions, you get almost the same wiring.
There will still be areas of variability, but a lot will be conserved. This is likely an "average" wiring. Once you have even an approximate baseline, you can vary things and see how the wiring adapted.