Workshop 4C
Moderator:
Mihail Bota,
Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, Norway
- Multiple approaches to database the entorhinal cortex
Trygve Leergaard, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway
- Mapping system level connectivity in the rat brain: digital brain atlasing and (semi-)quantitative tract tracing
Rembrandt Bakker, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Netherlands
- CoCoMac 2nd edition: open access made easy
Hong-Wei Dong, LONI, UCLA, USA
- An Open Resource for Mapping Neural Networks
Oliver Schmitt, University of Rostock; Department of Anatomy, Germany
- Connectomes of the rat nervous system
Description:
Macroconnectomes (connectivity matrices at the brain 
regions level) are essential for understanding the structure-functional relationships of different parts of the mammalian central nervous system. They are also the starting point in construction of functionally relevant networks with different levels of complexity.
However, macroconnectomes construction is a complex and time consuming task involving combined efforts from experimental neuroanatomists and neuroinformaticians. There is no completed macroconnectome of any species to date, but a substantial amount of rat and macaque connectivity data is already collated by several neuroinformatics groups. The advent of more sophisticated axonal tracing techniques promises rapid production of high quality experimental connectivity data in (rodent) animal models. Moreover, improved tools for visualization, sharing, and analysis of tract tracing data, will expectedly facilitate extraction of knowledge and assembly of connectome matrices from such data.
The aim of this workshop is to communicate recent progress of well-established groups and researchers involved in assembly of connectomes in macaques, rats and mice. The workshop will bring together neuroanatomists and neuroinformaticians to discuss recent methodological advances and discoveries, and identify principal challenges in the field. These interactions may potentially induce and strengthen collaborations, and propel the field towards the establishment of complete mammalian connectomes.
