TY - JOUR T1 - Promisomics and the Short-Circuiting of Mind JF - eneuro JO - eNeuro DO - 10.1523/ENEURO.0521-20.2021 VL - 8 IS - 2 SP - ENEURO.0521-20.2021 AU - Alex Gomez-Marin Y1 - 2021/03/01 UR - http://www.eneuro.org/content/8/2/ENEURO.0521-20.2021.abstract N2 - Grand neuroscience projects, such as connectomics, have a recurrent tendency to overpromise and underdeliver. Here I critically assess what is done in contrast with what is claimed about such endeavors, especially when the results are “horizontal” and the conclusions “vertical”, namely, when maps of one level (synaptic connections) are conflated with mappings between levels (neural function, animal behavior, cognitive processes). I argue that to suggest that connectomics will give us the mind of a mouse, a human or even a fly is conceptually flawed. Even if we, neuroscientists, do not take our metaphors literally, we should take them seriously.Imagine that a group of prominent psychologists wrote a paper about the brain of a mouse disregarding neural matters. Measuring attention or perception at unprecedented resolution, these scientists would promise to solve the mouse’s brain (by decree, it would emerge from “mind stuff”). Published in a top cognitive science journal, “The Brain of a Mouse” would inspire the current and generations to come.Conversely, and in reality, we have it reverse for neuroscience. Mirroring the spirit of the 1986 classic whose running head read “The Mind of a Worm” (White et al., 1986), a recent commentary (Abbott et al., 2020) discusses the feasibility and benefits of mapping the synaptic connections of an entire rodent brain. Entitled “The Mind of a Mouse,” the piece illustrates some of the strengths of the neural zeitgeist. It inadvertently also reveals some of its paradigmatic weaknesses.What, if anything, could be “wrong” with attempting to map a mouse brain at the synapse level?In terms of quantity, the authors do the math and set the case: If the connectome of the humble worm were the equivalent in length to the width of a typical airplane seat (by taking 1000 μm3 of brain volume as a … ER -