Scientists Create Detailed Diagram of an Insect's Brain
Scientists Create Detailed Diagram of an Insect's Brain
Scientists Create , Detailed Diagram , of an Insect's Brain.
Engadget reports that scientists have created a detailed "circuit map" of an insect brain, an accomplishment that may shed light on how the brain processes data.
As reported in 'Neuroscience News,' researchers have , created a connectome, of a fruit fly larva.
The connectome is a diagram of the insect's 3,016 neurons and 548,000 synapses.
The detailed diagram could help scientists understand exactly how the brain controls behavior, learning, body functions and much more.
Up until this point, we’ve not seen the structure of any brain except of the roundworm C.
Elegans, the tadpole of a low chordate, and the larva of a marine annelid, all of which have several hundred neurons, Marta Zlatic, Professor from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, via 'Engadget'.
This means neuroscience has been mostly operating without circuit maps.
Without knowing the structure of a brain, we’re guessing on the way computations are implemented.
But now, we can start gaining a mechanistic understanding of how the brain works, Marta Zlatic, Professor from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, via 'Engadget'.
To create the detailed diagram, the team scanned thousands of slices from the larva's brain and integrated the results, annotating every neural connection.
To create the detailed diagram, the team scanned thousands of slices from the larva's brain and integrated the results, annotating every neural connection.
Engadget reports that the team now plans to take a closer look at structures involved with behavioral functions that include learning and decision-making.
The team also plans on investigating connectome activity while the insect performs specific activities.
In the same way that genes are conserved across the animal kingdom, I think that the basic circuit motifs that implement these fundamental behaviors will also be conserved, Marta Zlatic, Professor from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, via 'Engadget'