What is "connectome"

n. (context biology English) The complete description of the structural connectivity of an organism's nervous system.

A connectome is a comprehensive map of neural connections in the brain, and may be thought of as its " wiring diagram". More broadly, a connectome would include the mapping of all neural connections within an organism's nervous system.

The production and study of connectomes, known as connectomics, may range in scale from a detailed map of the full set of neurons and synapses within part or all of the nervous system of an organism to a macro scale description of the functional and structural connectivity between all cortical areas and subcortical structures. The term "connectome" is used primarily in scientific efforts to capture, map, and understand the organization of neural interactions within the brain.

Research has successfully constructed the full connectome of one animal: the roundworm C. elegans (White et al., 1986, Varshney et al., 2011). Partial connectomes of a mouse retina and mouse primary visual cortex have also been successfully constructed. Bock et al.s complete 12 TB data set is publicly available at Open Connectome Project.

The ultimate goal of connectomics is to map the human brain. This effort is pursued by the Human Connectome Project, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, whose focus is to build a network map of the human brain in healthy, living adults.