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Largest brain map ever reveals fruit fly’s neurons in exquisite detail (www.nature.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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"... Researchers are hoping to do that now that they have a new map — the most complete for any organism so far — of the brain of a single fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster). The wiring diagram, or ‘connectome’, includes nearly 140,000 neurons and captures more than 54.5 million synapses, which are the connections between nerve cells.

... The map is described in a package of nine papers about the data published in Nature today. Its creators are part of a consortium known as FlyWire, co-led by neuroscientists Mala Murthy and Sebastian Seung at Princeton University in New Jersey."

See the associated Nature collection: The FlyWire connectome: neuronal wiring diagram of a complete fly brain, which also has links to the nine papers

All nine papers are open access!

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They have a picture/ model / skeleton but can't simulate the data that flows through those structures yet.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Well there is no "data" per se, there's voltages and a wiring map. And this article is talking about having the complete wiring map.

The neurons deliver electrical pulses across synapses. The thickness and length of the synapse can affect the voltage or amplitude transmitted across to the next neuron. And again, if we have this fairly complete map of synapses, we may have enough information to calculate the electrical outputs of each neuron when it fires.

My understanding is that neurons work something like transistors, they receive signals and when triggered by a strong enough signal, or by enough simultaneous signals, that neuron will also fire and transmit down its synapses. With this alone you absolutely have enough structure for very complex decision making, much like a microprocessor.

I guess the question is really how accurate is this map? If we have a clear enough picture of every synaptic connection, we could simply simulate behavior in software...