The dimension question: how high does it go?

How many cells do neuroscientists need to monitor to get an accurate picture of what the brain is doing?

May 24, 2017 Neural activity of 1,500 neurons recorded via calcium imaging. Credit: Marius Pachitariu Scientists can routinely track the activity of hundreds — sometimes even thousands — of neurons in the brain of awake animals. But how many cells do they need to monitor to truly understand how the brain functions? That question has become a hot topic among researchers doing large-scale neural recordings. The answer could shape the future of the field, influencing how scientists design experiments and new technologies. “The question is whether we can infer something about what the larger netwo

related reading

• Dimensionality reduction in neural data analysisxcorr.net
• Could a Neuroscientist Understand a Microprocessor? | PLOS Computational Biologyjournals.plos.org
• Neuroscience is pre-paradigmatic. Consciousness is whytheintrinsicperspective.com
• Scaling Properties of Dimensionality Reduction for Neural Populations and Network Models | PLOS Computational Biologyjournals.plos.org
• What If We Had Bigger Brains? Imagining Minds beyond Ours-Stephen Wolfram Writingswritings.stephenwolfram.com
• Estimating the dimensionality of the manifold underlying multi-electrode neural recordingsncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• State of Brain Emulation Report 2025 | Research Overviewbrainemulation.mxschons.com
• Large-scale neural recordings call for new insights to link brain and behavior | Nature Neurosciencenature.com
• Dimensionality reduction for large-scale neural recordings - PubMedpubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• Neural data science: accelerating the experiment-analysis-theory cycle in large-scale neuroscience | bioRxivbiorxiv.org
• Volitional control of individual neurons in the human brainpmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• Neural manifolds: Latest buzzword or pathway to understand the brain?thetransmitter.org