First map of every neuron in an adult brain has been produced for a fruit fly

Originally published by UK Research and Innovation on October 2, 2024

 

3D rendering of all ~140k neurons in the fruit fly brain. Credit: Data source: FlyWire.ai; Rendering by Philipp Schlegel (University of Cambridge/MRC LMB).

The first wiring diagram of every neuron in an adult brain and the 50 million connections between them has been produced for a fruit fly.

This landmark achievement has been conducted by a large international collaboration of scientists, called the FlyWire Consortium, including researchers from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (in Cambridge, UK), Princeton University, the University of Vermont and the University of Cambridge.

It is published in a pair of papers in Nature.

The diagram of all 139,255 neurons in the adult fly brain is the first of an entire brain for an animal that can walk and see. Previous efforts have completed the whole brain diagrams for much smaller brains, for example, for that of a fruit fly larva, which has 3,016 neurons, and a nematode worm, which has 302 neurons.

3D rendering of all ~140k neurons in the fruit fly brain. Credit: Data source: FlyWire.ai; Rendering by Philipp Schlegel (University of Cambridge/MRC LMB).

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