Fly Brain Map Rewires Neuroscience
Researchers at the Janelia Research Campus have successfully mapped the entire connectome of a fruit fly brain, consisting of over 166,000 neurons. This achievement provides a detailed wiring diagram that offers new insights into how brains generate behavior.
Why it matters
This milestone in connectomics provides a foundational model for understanding complex neural circuits and may eventually help explain vertebrate brain function.
When researchers at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus set out to create a map of all the neurons in the fruit fly brain in 2008, many in the scientific community thought they were out of their minds.
It had been 20 years since scientists had unveiled the wiring diagram - or connectome - of the 302 neurons in the tiny worm C. elegans, an effort that took more than a decade. Most scientists thought mapping the fly brain, with more than 100,000 neurons, would take too long and cost too much - and they didn't think it would tell neuroscientists much about how the brain worked.
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