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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, whi...

Originally published by Tejasri Gururaj , Medical Xpress, on August 26, 2024 Neural activity gives information about how fruit flies respond to various sensory stimuli, revealing insights into how they process and encode these experiences into short-term and long-term memories. Credit: Cheng Huang. Fly image credit: https://prints.sciencesource.com/featured/6-fruit-fly-drosophila-melanogaster-oliver-meckes-eye-of-science.html . In a recent study published in Nature , researchers from Stanford University and Yale University have explored the interplay between short-term and long-term memory in animals. Learning and memory in insects are controlled by a structure known as the mushroom body, analogous to the hippocampus in mammals . While previous studies have explored this in insects, the researchers wanted to understand how pre-existing, innate responses to stimuli influence learning new associations and how these memories are formed and maintained over time . Medical Xpress...

Originally published by Nik Papageorgiou, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne , on May 29, 2024  Credit: Cell Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2024.114256 A new study by EPFL scientists shows that age-related decline in motor ability can be countered in fruit flies by enhancing the expression of the protein Trio , suggesting potential treatments for age-related movement decline. As we age , we suffer a noticeable decline in motor ability , which affects our quality of life and independence. This can be traced t o changes occurring at neuromuscular junctions , the critical points where nerve cells communicate with muscles .   The deterioration of motor ability is closely linked to the degeneration of motor synaptic terminals , where signals pass from nerves in the spine to muscles. As we age, the terminals u ndergo structural fragmentation , reducing the release of neurotransmitters , which is crucial for initiating muscle movements. In the end, this translates i...

Originally published by Dionne Seah, Duke-NUS Medical School, on August 8, 2023   An image of neural stem cells (NSCs) from Drosophila (fruit fly) larval brains six hours after larval hatching. NSCs are labeled by a membrane marker (green) and a nuclear marker (magenta). Scale bar: 10µm. Credit: Mahekta Rajeshkumar Gujar Researchers at Duke-NUS Medical School have discovered the regenerative capabilities of injured cellular protrusions from dormant neural stem cells ( NSCs ) in fruit flies . Published in Developmental Cell , the findings establish fruit fly NSCs as a powerful new model to unlock the secrets of neuronal regeneration that could one day lead to new therapies for repairing damage in aging human brains . The study is the first to demonstrate that severed protrusions from fruit fly NSCs can regenerate . However, this capacity declines with age, mirroring the limited ability of mammalian neurons to regrow damaged connections as they grow older. The r...