A major challenge in neuroscience is to determine the rules that govern the structural and functional interdependence of cellular neural circuits and networks in the brain [1]. This challenge is a difficult one given the fact that brain networks are complex networks with emergent behaviors and properties. Understanding the underlying mechanisms that shape the intimate relationship between structure and function will help us better understand how functional brain states emerge from their underlying structural substrate, in addition to providing us with new insights into how the disruption of this function-structure interdependence will affect brain function.
It is clear that structure and function are interrelated and that specific brain regions and even specific brain networks have well defined structural topologies, determined by the very specific neuron types that they recruit and the specific connections that these neurons project [2]. This fundamental property plays a major role in determining functions that are characteristic of certain brain networks. However, it is less clear how experience and exposure to external cues can lead to the emergence of fast and flexibly reconfigured functional networks that are bound by a well defined structural substrate, and how this structural substrate in turn, but at a slower time scale, may reshape functional networks. Even more intriguing is the fact that such functional networks, while highly dynamic, play a major role in remodeling, associating and storing information that is presented by external cues for time periods that can sometimes extend over an individual's lifetime; in short they underlie learning and memory.