How to make mathematical sense of connectomics data
...[C]onsider the example ... regarding the significant resources and time being put into deciphering the structural connectome of the brain. This massive amount of accumulating data is qualitative, and although everyone agrees it is important and necessary to have it in order to ultimately understand the dynamics of the brain that emerges from the structural substrate represented by the connectome, it is not at all clear at present how to achieve this. Although there have been some initial attempts at using this data in quantitative analyses they are essentially mostly descriptive and offer little insights into how the brain actually works. A reductionist’s approach to studying the brain, no matter how much we learn and how much we know about the parts that make it up at any scale, will by itself never provide an understanding of the dynamics of brain function, which necessarily requires a quantitative, i.e., mathematical and physical, context.
That's Gabriel Silva, more here, interesting throughout.
Reference
Silva GA (2011) The need for the emergence of mathematical neuroscience: beyond computation and simulation. Front. Comput. Neurosci. 5:51. doi: 10.3389/fncom.2011.00051