From circuits to behavior: a bridge too far?
Abstract
Neuroscience seeks to understand how neural circuits lead to behavior. However, the gap between circuits and behavior is too wide. An intermediate level is one of neural computations, which occur in individual neurons and populations of neurons. Some computations seem to be canonical: repeated and combined in different ways across the brain. To understand neural computations, we must record from a myriad of neurons in multiple brain regions. Understanding computation guides research in the underlying circuits and provides a language for theories of behavior.
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It is very hard to infer the mapping between the behavior of a system and its lower-level properties by only looking at the lower-level properties.
“it is very hard to infer the mapping between the behavior of a system and its lower-level properties by only looking at the lower-level properties”
From Neuroscience Needs Behavior: Correcting a Reductionist Bias (2017) · cites this paper as Carandini, 2012
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- Authors
- Carandini, M.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Carandini, Matteo
- ORCID
- Carandini, Matteo
- Venue
- Nature Neuroscience
- Published
- 2012-03-27
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 507-509
- ISSN
- 1097-6256 (ISSN-L)
- 1546-1726
- OpenAlex
- W2061515192
- Cited by
- 187
- References
- 33
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 21 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 18 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 9.66
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Undergraduate Neuroscience Education and Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Keywords
- neural circuits, behavior, neural computation, population coding, single-unit recording, brain regions
- MeSH terms
- Behavior, Brain, Humans, Nerve Net, Neurosciences, Computational Biology
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