Connectomics: A new paradigm for understanding brain disease Alex Fornitoa, N, Edward T. Bullmore a,b,c,d a Monash Clinical and Imaging Neuroscience, School of Psychology and Psychiatry
The brain is much more than just an organ that functions at the heart of the nervous system. It is an astonishing complex integration of nerves that control the functioning of the nervous system and other elements. Tiny was known and understood about this organ, however, in the recent times, various neurologists have stepped in to fill in this gap and shed light into the different physical attributes of the brain. The improvement and rapid growth of technology have made it possible for medicine to unravel information that was previously inaccessible. The world has now come to know of the various compositions of the brain and their contributions to the functionalities of the nervous system (Fornitoa & Bullmorea, 2015). The article by Alex Fornito and Edward Bullmore, Connectomics: A new paradigm for understanding Brain disease sheds light on what has previously been a medical puzzle. The article describes the various contributions of a study of brain connectome to understanding various brain diseases that have affected some humans.
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Fornitoa and Bullmore acknowledge the contribution of connectomics to understanding brain disease in this article. Thus they venture into the study by focusing on brain dysfunction from three levels. These include network topology, connectome deep level and candidate circuits. The topological analysis involves the interrelations or arrangement of constituent elements making up the brain. This research is in three groups which include topological integration, topological segregation and hub dominance. Connectome analysis, on the other hand, studies the complete mapping of disease associated modifications. Since techniques are being formulated to enable susceptible identification of significant effects allocated in the connectome medical practitioners have been able to map out structural and functional effects of mental disorder such as dementia, schizophrenia, and autism. Candidate circuits, on the other hand, focus on brain’s function under resting position (Fornitoa & Bullmorea, 2015).
The article is well perfect with diagrammatic demonstrations of the brain and the related connectomic aspects. Fiorito and Bullmore take their time to describe the various medical terms with adequate citations for extra information. The article exhaustively describes the anatomy of connectome. He sheds new insight into the entailments of the brain and adds that it is not just an organ but an interconnection of nerves. The use of diagram creates a visual understanding of this work with detailed explanations at the bottom of each diagrammatic representation. The paper, however, uses too many jargons that make the paper unappealing to an audience that is not conversant with the medical terms. This article suggests that Fornitoa and Bullmore targeted physicians who were very conversant with the medical terms. The report is also limited to three levels of brain dysfunction where the authors fail to indicate whether there are other levels and what the implications on brain dysfunction may be (Fornitoa & Bullmorea, 2015).
The article is unique to other items in that it discusses the association of the composition of the brain to brain disease. The article enlightens the audience about what usually takes place in the mind when it suffers from a dysfunction such as dementia. The audience has hope that with new technological innovations, the world will come to know more about the brain and the disease associated with it as well as means of healing these illnesses. Fornitoa and Bullmore prove that there is more to the brain than was previously believed and medical practitioners are a step ahead to the discovery f these hidden facts. The authors break down the advancements made in medicine that will lead to freedom from these ailments with time. The audience is also introduced to the working of MRI to help realize these connections of the brain. The article is very informative and enlighting.
Making connections: Summary of content
The articles main focus is the HCP project proposal, and if the project is worth the money the Martinos center for biomedical imaging center is will spend to create the blueprint for the brain. The brain is responsible for several functions in the body; the projects seek to come up with one diagram of how the connectomes in the brain work. The article dwells on ways to understand the human brain and how each connection is essential to the body. The center used me as an example of what they intended to get the link to each cell in the brain (Joy, 2012).
The thesis of the writer was to determine whether the HCP concept is worth the money; in the article, there is no breakdown of on the usage of the $40 billion over the five years. For someone to determine the worth of a project, the author should have provided at least an estimate of the cost yearly which makes it easier to determine the total after five years. The breakdown is supposed to be on the works in progress and the ones anticipated beginning and how much they cost or might cost. The only place the development comes in is when the writer got an advanced MRI technology.
The article dwells so much on describing other projects done in the past, instead of conducting the research on how far the HCP project is coming along. The large part of the article describes the process of creating a blueprint for the human connectomes project. For such a project to go through there should be more than just an analysis and background information provided. The topic was on whether the money the project is anticipated to use is worth it, the report starts with a patient getting an MRI; scans should help determine the progress of the project. The move has not yet been supportive of the project at hand. The information provided does not talk about the cost implications of any process in the project instead all the article talks about is how the research happens, how to collect the information regarding the brain (Joy, 2012).
The brain is a very complicated part of the body; it requires a deep analysis before undertaking any project to either get improved results or even get any results at all. Doctor David Kleinfeld says that to get such a project going it will need a lot of research in the neuroscience department, just to understand the biology of the brain. Getting information on the connectivity of the brain isn’t just collecting data and analysis it; the process must involve experts to chip in and help by providing information on the subject. The article only focuses on the comments of critics of the project on a very shallow basis instead of engaging neuroscientist to gather information on the progress made up to now regarding the topic. This process will help break down the project on what is available and what needs to be done to make such a project successful.
Doctor Kleifield is not the only one who feels this project will take up so many resources yet the results are likely to be inconclusive, Doctor Sebastian Seung also thinks that the project comes too soon and the likely hood of its success is very minimal.
They both agree that such a project needs more than just doing a series of MRI test on the victims to look at the cells in the brain, more time and research needs to be before even thinking about the cost implications of such a project.
Divergent network connectivity changes in behavioral variant front temporal dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
The article is meant to look at the behavioral changes in people who have Alzheimer’s and temporal dementia, to understand the topic on these disorders better, several studies conducted so as to gauge the extent of the diseases. The article has information on the test procedures done to determine the brain's connectivity and how a person with either of the two brain disorders comprehends information. The article gives information on the connection between the brains function and the two disorders. The only way to determine that relationship is to conduct a few tests that prove there is a link between the ICN strength and the specific behavioral or neuropsychological variables of interest. The information on the salience network that is minimal, focusing on the disseminated anterior ICN devoted to determining how being emotionally social helps with emotional autonomic processing, and on the other hand, makes stronger connectivity inside a subsequent DMN concerned in periodic recollection and visuospatial roles. In Alzheimer’s disease, there was decrease in DMN but no Salience system developments (Michael & Bruce, 2010).
All these tests are meant to determine what happens to the brain when a patient has Alzheimer's or temporal dementia and how to prevent the disorders or how to treat them when they occur. The people act as test subjects are subjected to different conditions and under different mediation to try and understand the function of the brain under various conditions plus the effect of certain drugs on the brain.
The article focused on the tests done help in determining the damage in the brain when a patient has the two disorders. The task free ICN FMRI method was used to demonstrate that temporal dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are as a result of different conflicting patterns of large-scale system connectivity. There have been previous researches that have shown that the disruptions linked to temporal dementia and Alzheimer’s. The process is just to indicate how the disturbance associates with the disorders, instead of showing the different connectivity changes in behavioral in these two disorders (Michael & Bruce, 2010).
There is a lot of information about the process of testing on how the ICN analysis works with the two disorders, the article did not provide any new information that was not available in other sources, the tests have been conducted, and the same results come out. The thesis aims at providing the readers with new information on current procedures to take place in the future.
The data on the salience network that is less, focusing on the disseminated anterior ICN devoted to determining how being emotionally social helps with emotional autonomic processing, and on the other hand, make stronger connectivity inside a subsequent DMN concerned in periodic recollection and visuospatial roles. In Alzheimer’s disease, there were decreases in DMN but no Salience system developments.
Conclusion
The article had critical information on the mapping of neural of dementia as a disorder plus how the salience network-DMN anti-correlation relationship in the healthy brain. This information will be very useful in helping people to understand the Alzheimer's and temporal dementia patient’s better (Michael & Bruce, 2010). It is a very methodical way of providing people with information to use wherever they are, and in future, we hope to see more details and solutions for the disorders or even tips on how to prevent them.
References
European Neuropsychopharmacology, UK: Cambridge University Press
Fornitoa, A. & Bullmorea, E. (2015). Connectomics: A new paradigm for understanding brain disease
Joy, B. (2012). Making connections: Is a project to map the brain’s full communications network worth the money . New York: Macmillan Publishers
Michael,D.& Bruce,L. (2010). Divergent network connectivity changes in behavioral variant front temporal dementia and Alzheimer’s diseases, Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences , Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
