Charting a larval fruit fly’s nerve cells and their connections took 12 years...
The wiring of one insect’s brain no longer contains much uncharted territory.
All of the nerve cells — and virtually every connection between them — in a larval fruit fly brain have now been mapped and it’s the most complex whole brain wiring diagram yet created.
Previously, just three organisms — a sea squirt and two types of worm — had their brain circuitry fully diagrammed to this resolution. But the brains of those creatures have only a few hundred neurons. The scientists who conducted the new study wanted to understand much more complicated brains.
Fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) share a wide range of behaviors with humans, including integrating sensory information and learning. Larvae perform nearly all the same actions as adult flies — except for some, like flying and mating — but have smaller brains, making data collection much faster.
The researchers identified more than 3,000 neurons and about 550,000 connections, known as synapses.
The wiring of one insect’s brain no longer contains much uncharted territory.
All of the nerve cells — and virtually every connection between them — in a larval fruit fly brain have now been mapped and it’s the most complex whole brain wiring diagram yet created.
Previously, just three organisms — a sea squirt and two types of worm — had their brain circuitry fully diagrammed to this resolution. But the brains of those creatures have only a few hundred neurons. The scientists who conducted the new study wanted to understand much more complicated brains.
Fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) share a wide range of behaviors with humans, including integrating sensory information and learning. Larvae perform nearly all the same actions as adult flies — except for some, like flying and mating — but have smaller brains, making data collection much faster.
The researchers identified more than 3,000 neurons and about 550,000 connections, known as synapses.
