Neuroscience in the era of functional genomics and systems biology

Even though it is omic, it is less unbiased than methods that survey the genome more agnostically.

“So although it is “ –-omic” in nature [71], it is not quite as unbiased as methods that survey the genome more agnostically.”

Only a few elements of integrating these levels of understanding have been achieved so far, and only preliminarily.

“Components of this have been achieved in a preliminary manner for only a few elements, but to understand ASD from a systems level mechanistic perspective, we will need to integrate all of these levels of understanding [71].”

Methods are now available to measure large-scale molecular, cellular, and circuit-level phenotypes, with additional methods in development.

“Methods have recently become available that permit the measurement of large-scale molecular4,5, cellular6 and circuit-level3 phenotypes, and additional methods are currently in development7.”

Many biological networks have a hierarchical structure in which nodes can be organized into a relatively small collection of highly interconnected modules.

“Many biological networks have a hierarchical structure such that their nodes can be organized into a relatively small collection of highly interconnected modules4,28,29”

Network methods relate genes to each other using measured or predicted relationships and provide an organizing framework that places each gene in its molecular system.

“Network methods (BOX 2) relate genes to each other using the measured or predicted relationships between them4 and provide an essential organizing framework that places each gene in the context of its molecular system.”

Transcriptomic and other molecular systems measurements can be correlated with systems neuroscience phenotypes, such as MRI and functional MRI, or behavioural phenotypes to identify non-invasive indicators of disease state.

“Transcriptomic and other molecular systems measurements can also be correlated with systems neuroscience phenotypes, such as MRI and functional MRI measurements, or behavioural phenotypes to identify non-invasive indicators of disease state4 (FIG. 1a).”