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To elaborate by way of example, suppose we have a memory which includes a visual component. It seems that when that memory is activated, it would in turn activate something in visual centers (information through effect). What does it activate there, what does this tell us? This in turn can be interpreted by the other sorts of experiences or memories that activate that subsection, or activate the visual center in that pattern (information through cause).

If we can establish with good confidence a way in which to interpret activation in particular regions, this allows us to better interpret activation of clusters that feed into those regions. Plausibly, this might be easiest to start on with sensory areas, and indeed, could be the explanation of why we have so much more information on what is going on in those areas: we can correlate external, interpretable events with firing patterns in space and time. Sufficiently short causal chains from external experience to activation can explain the much tight correlations we see there, as opposed to the frontal cortex.

A great jump would be going from correlating activity in areas with outside events, to correlating activity in areas to other areas that are already well understood. Assuming the process of recognizing concepts and ideas works as such, we could then interpret firing in say, the frontal lobe, by the activation of clusters we've already determined recognize 'cat' and 'milk'.

At each step of this process, we can them jump to interpreting activity in a new area that feeds into the recently understood region. We also would gain better information about areas we've already understood fairly well, as clusters could activate "lower level" clusters as well. There will be surprises of course, reversing some of our earlier interpretations, but I expect there's a way to get enough good information to start the process.

One difficulties is that, through differing genes and certainly through differing experiences, much (or ~all) of the clusters and organizations will be particular to a given person; this would have to be done for each person you sought to understand. Secondly, the brain would be changing as you undertook this study, so some conclusions could hold less true over time; you would want to work somewhat quickly.