Scientists Map Entire Brain of Adult Fruit Fly

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Facts

  • Princeton University researchers have mapped 50M connections between every single one of 139,255 neurons in the adult fruit fly's poppy seed-sized brain.[1]
  • According to Sven Dorkenwald, the lead author of the study published on Wednesday in Nature, the researchers built 'an atlas of the brain, and added annotations for all the businesses, the buildings, the street names.'[2][3]
  • The neuron-by-neuron map of the brain of a fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) was developed using artificial intelligence by the FlyWire Consortium — a team of 287 researchers as well as volunteer gamers.[4][3]
  • Since fruit flies share 60% of human DNA and 75% of the genes that cause genetic diseases, scientists believe studying the fruit fly's brain map could 'perhaps inspire new machine learning architectures.'[5][3]
  • Princeton neuroscientist and co-leader of the research, Mala Murthy, said the fruit fly brain's mapping will reveal how neurons and neural connections 'can give rise to animal behavior.'[6]
  • This is the first time a complex brain has been completely mapped. In 2019, a tiny worm's brain, with just 385 neurons, was entirely reconstructed.[7][8]

Sources: [1]Guardian, [2]BBC News, [3]Sciencedaily, [4]Nature, [5]TechCrunch, [6]Reuters, [7]New York Times and [8]NCBI.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by TechCrunch. This groundbreaking research opens new possibilities for understanding brain function and could inspire novel machine-learning architectures. The complete connectome of a complex living creature provides a valuable resource for studying brain organization and behavior. It's a crucial step towards unraveling the mysteries of more advanced brains, including human cognition.
  • Narrative B, as provided by NPR Online News. Mapping increasingly complex brains is an enormous challenge that may yield little benefit. While the fruit fly larval brain is impressive, it's still far removed from human brain complexity. The time, resources, and computational power required to map more advanced brains could be better spent on other neuroscience research avenues that directly impact human health and cognition.

Predictions