Scientists Map Fruit Fly Brains in Neurobiological Milestones

WASHINGTON – On Thursday, scientists announced a milestone in neurobiological research by mapping the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that could provide insights into brains across the animal kingdom, humans and among

The research details more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons – nerve cells of the brain – in the insect, a species with the scientific name Drosophila melanogaster and often used in neurobiological studies .

The research aims to discover how the brain is connected and the signals that underlie healthy brain activity. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species.

“You may be wondering why we should care about fruit fly brains. My simple answer is that if we could really understand how the brain works, it would tell us something about every brain,” said Sebastian, professor of neuroscience and computer science at Princeton University. Seung Seung , one of the co-leaders of the work published in a series of studies in the journal Nature.

While some people may be more interested in swatting flies than studying them, some researchers find exquisite satisfaction in peering into the brains of fruit flies, which are more less than 0.04 inch (1 mm) wide.

“It’s beautiful,” said Cambridge University neuroscientist and study co-leader Gregory Jefferis.

The map designed by the researchers provides a wiring diagram, called a connectome, for the brain of an adult fruit fly. Similar research has been done before with simpler organisms, such as the worm Caenorhabditis elegans and the larval stages of fruit flies. Adult fruit flies exhibit more complex behaviors that can be learned through their brain machinery.

“One of the main questions we addressed was how networks in the brain, neurons and their connections, can cause animal behavior,” said Princeton neuroscientist Mala Murthy, one of the leaders of the research.

“And flies are an important model system for neuroscience. Their brains solve many of the same problems that we do … which is behavior that we study in the laboratory at Princeton,” Murthy said.

One study analyzed the brain circuitry underlying walking and found how flies stopped. Other studies analyzed the fly’s taste buds and the grooming cycles behind behaviors such as using its feet to clean dirt from its antennae.

Other research showed the visual system including how the eyes of flies process movement and color information. Another analyzed connectivity through the brain, finding large clusters of “hub neurons” that could speed up the flow of information.

The researchers created a map that follows the organization of cerebral hemispheres and behavioral circuits within the fly’s brain. They also identified the full range of cell classes in his brain, determined the different types of neurons and the chemical connections – synapses – between these nerve cells, and looked at the types of chemicals produced by him. the neurons.

This work was carried out by a large international collaboration of scientists called the FlyWire Consortium.