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Appreciating diversity of goals in computational neuroscience

Outsiders often perceive computational neuroscience as a coherent field that strives towards progressively better models of the brain. However, informal interactions with modelers often reveal wildly divergent goals. Here we explicitly address the diversity of goals that motivate and ultimately influence modeling efforts. We argue that a wide range of goals can be meaningfully taken to be of highest importance. A simple informal survey conducted on the Internet confirmed the diversity of goals in the community. We propose that many disagreements in evaluating the merit of computational research stem from differences in goals and not from the mechanics of constructing, describing, and validating models. We suggest that authors should state explicitly their goals when proposing models so that others can judge the quality of the research with respect to its goals.