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Untangling the Connectome

Narayanan “Bobby” Kasthuri on how our wiring makes us human

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Bobby Kasthuri needs a map. Not your everyday, get-me-to-Kenmore-Square kind of map. He’s got something else in mind. What Kasthuri needs is a map of all the connections in the human brain—kind of a wiring diagram for neurons. Kasthuri, an assistant professor in the department of anatomy and neurobiology at the School of Medicine, thinks that this map—the so-called “connectome”—could help explain how our brains develop from childhood and give deep insights into memory and consciousness.

But there’s a problem: the data. The map of one mouse brain would consume about two exabytes—that’s two billion gigabytes—of storage. (For comparison, the iPhone 6 comes with a mere 128 gigs.) With some creative help from a handful of high school students, Kasthuri has analyzed a sliver of mouse brain and created stunning images of neurons. The exquisitely detailed images hint at the power of big data, the complexity of the connectome, and some of the secrets that may lie waiting for us in the brain.