Human connectome project: lessons from genetics

The number of genes separating humans and other primate is fewer than previously thought and in fact very small. See this piece.  What this means is that phenotypical differences are not primarily a function of protein coding genes themselves:

"The physiological and developmental differences between primates are likely to be caused by gene regulation rather than by differences in the basic functions of the proteins in question."

 I think this is an important lesson for the massive effort(s) to map the structure of the human brain (e.g., connectome project, BRAIN Initiative, etc.).  I support this effort, of course.  It will provide invaluable data and is absolutely necessary.  But I think once complete we will be in a place quite similar to where we are in genetics: Human Genome Sequence--check.  Understanding how to build a human--not even close.

MIT's Sebastian Seung likes to say, "I am my connectome."  I think the connectome will turn out to be something like the genome: fairly generic foundation on which all of the really interesting stuff is built.  In short, mapping the connectome isn't going to tell us how to build a brain, unfortunately.