Function Ascription Practices in Circuit Interventions

Abstract Novel tools have allowed researchers to intervene into circuits at the mesoscale. The results of these interventions are often explained by appeal to functions. How are functions ascribed to circuit parts experimentally? I identify two kinds of function ascription practices in circuit interventions. Analysis of these practices shows us that what makes function ascriptions challenging is a lack of interventive control and insufficient constraints on the class of candidate functions to discriminate in practice. One kind of function ascription practice—subtractive analysis—fares better at addressing these challenges.