Drawing connections from other fields for Connectomics?

[mrjiaruiwang]

Can we draw some knowledge we already know from other fields of study to better understand connectomics? I was thinking maybe the operations research that was going on during the world wars might be helpful because they were very interested in the connectivity of supply lines. Or what about from networks of published academic journals? I feel like a connection is there, but I can't quite define it.

[michaelseung]

I suppose we can draw parallels from any comprehensive map with interconnections or clusters, regardless of the field. I'm not sure what specifically we would be able to draw from something like the operations research that we don't already know from connectomics. If anybody else has any ideas, I'd be interested as well.

[dlee138]

Wouldn't a lot of fields within pure mathematics be applied to connectomics research? For example, I feel like topology and graph theory would be very applicable since they both deal with connectivity properties (i.e. the seven bridges problem).

[SandyaS72]

A lot of the properties of networks in any field (social networks, transportation networks, communication networks, etc) would be applicable honestly, so all the methods developed for those, such as graph theory, and everything we know about the properties of those networks are likely relevant.

[imichaelnorris]

When it comes to connectivity and tracing a signal through the brain, Ive been thinking about whether automata theory could be applied to approximate a brain using discrete time step transitions.

Dendrites (edges in the graph) could be transitions in the automata neurons (nodes in the graph) could be states. An issue arises because a finite automata only allows a single thing to happen at once, while a brain doesn't have that constraint, but that might be solvable by using a push down automata which can keep track of previous transitions.

[mrjiaruiwang]

I think an automata's usefulness stops at its mathematical construct for the purpose of demonstrating the classes of problems that can or can't be solved. But I agree, the idea could be used as inspiration. Maybe something like markov models can be used to account for state transitions.