Big science, team science, open science in the service of basic neuroscience

In this talk, Dr. Christof Koch presents the ambitious 10-year initiative at the Allen Institute for Brain Science to understand the structure and function of the neocortex in mice and humans. He emphasizes the shift from small-scale individual research to ‘big science’ and ’team science’, where large interdisciplinary teams work together on shared goals. The institute develops high-throughput pipelines to characterize cell types based on morphology, electrophysiology, and transcriptome, and to map synaptic connections. They are building ‘brain observatories’ to image and record neural activity in behaving mice, and to analyze connectivity at the ultrastructural level. The ultimate goal is to create biophysically detailed and simplified computer simulations of cortical networks to understand perception, behavior, and consciousness. Koch highlights the importance of open science, making data and tools freely available to the community, and discusses the challenges of managing large-scale projects and data. He also touches on the need for standardized workflows and the role of technology in accelerating discovery. The talk concludes with a vision for how these efforts will transform neuroscience and lead to new insights into brain function and disease.