Unveiling the biggest and most detailed map of the fly brain yet

[Jim__]

From phys.org:

To image the Drosophila hemibrain, researchers cut a fly brain into slabs, imaged each with an electron microscope, then stitched all the images together. The goal: To create an image volume that lets scientists trace each neuron’s path through the brain. Credit: FlyEM/Janelia Research Campus

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Janelia and Google scientists have constructed the most complete map of the fly brain ever created, pinpointing millions of connections between 25,000 neurons. Now, a wiring diagram of the entire brain is within reach.

In a darkened room in Ashburn, Virginia, rows of scientists sit at computer screens displaying vivid 3-D shapes. With a click of a mouse, they spin each shape to examine it from all sides. The scientists are working inside a concrete building at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus, just off a street called Helix Drive. But their minds are somewhere else entirely—inside the brain of a fly.

Each shape on the scientists' screens represents part of a fruit fly neuron. These researchers and others at Janelia are tackling a goal that once seemed out of reach: outlining each of the fly brain's roughly 100,000 neurons and pinpointing the millions of places they connect. Such a wiring diagram, or connectome, reveals the complete circuitry of different brain areas and how they're linked. The work could help unlock networks involved in memory formation, for example, or neural pathways that underlie movements.

more ...