Session profile

• Audience: advanced undergrad, graduate, and early-career researchers.
• Duration: 70 minutes lecture + 15 minutes discussion.
• Output: one hypothesis brief with measurable connectomics endpoints.

Slide-by-slide lecture plan

1. Slide 1 (2 min): Title and positioning
   • Technical Training: Nanoscale Connectomics as a hypothesis engine.
   • State this unit as the epistemic boundary-setting lecture.
2. Slide 2 (4 min): Why map structure at all?
   • Structural constraints as priors for mechanism.
   • Historical successes and modern scale shift.
3. Slide 3 (5 min): What structure can and cannot claim
   • Structure constrains candidate computations.
   • Structure alone does not prove dynamic causality.
4. Slide 4 (6 min): From biological question to measurable endpoint
   • Convert broad questions into quantifiable graph or morphology outputs.
   • Examples: motif enrichment, compartment targeting, path length constraints.
5. Slide 5 (6 min): Measurement units and data products
   • Synapse tables, skeletons, meshes, connectivity graphs.
   • Match unit choice to hypothesis.
6. Slide 6 (6 min): Minimum evidence requirements
   • Completeness thresholds by claim type.
   • Error budgets and uncertainty labeling.
7. Slide 7 (5 min): Null models and comparators
   • Degree-preserving and spatially constrained controls.
   • Why null mismatch invalidates conclusions.
8. Slide 8 (6 min): Worked example A
   • Local recurrent motif hypothesis from cortical microcircuit.
   • Define readout, null, and falsification condition.
9. Slide 9 (6 min): Worked example B
   • Cell-type-specific targeting hypothesis.
   • Show where scaling or annotation error breaks inference.
10. Slide 10 (5 min): Common failure modes
    • Claim inflation, metric mismatch, and dataset mismatch.
11. Slide 11 (5 min): Practical protocol
    • Five-step pre-analysis checklist for structural claims.
12. Slide 12 (4 min): Journal-club bridge
    • Required paper tie-in and what to extract from methods.
13. Slide 13 (5 min): In-class mini-lab prompt
    • Draft one study brief with question, metric, null, and limitation.
14. Slide 14 (5 min): Debrief and bridge to Unit 02
    • Scale selection as next gating technical decision.

Figure integration points

• Primary shortlist: course/units/figures/01-why-map-the-brain-selected-v1.md.
• Use one visual each for: motivation, evidence boundary, and hypothesis-to-metric mapping.

Speaker notes (expert-level)

• Explicitly separate descriptive outputs from mechanistic inference.
• Use at least one counterexample where strong structure data still leaves function ambiguous.
• Emphasize reproducibility requirements before interpretation.

Assessment and artifacts

• Deliverable: 1-page hypothesis brief.
• Rubric dimensions: testability, measurement alignment, null-model fit, and claim discipline.

Connections

• Unit page: Why Map the Brain
• Journal club: Technical Track Journal Club
• Dictionary: Connectomics Dictionary
• Existing module overlap: module01

Slide source file

• Marp draft source: course/decks/marp/01-why-map-the-brain.marp.md
• Batch render helper: ./scripts/render_marp.sh