Google Research Shares 5 Visuals of Male Fruit Fly’s Neural Network

Scientists have completed the most detailed map yet of a male fruit fly’s nervous system, charting a record-breaking 166,000 neurons. The years-long project, a collaboration between HHMI Janelia Research Campus and Google Research, details not only the brain but also the ventral nerve cord, an anatomical feature analogous to a human spinal cord. This complete map builds on earlier work mapping the female fruit fly brain and promises to be a foundational resource for neuroscience for years to come, enabling researchers to exponentially scale projects in the field of connectomics, according to Google Research. Like humans, the fly relies on a retractable proboscis for sensing and feeding, a unique biological detail now illuminated within this neural atlas. The newly completed map details the brain and ventral…