Scientists working on the brain have dreamed of this for decades: navigating the human brain and being able to observe all the neuronal connections, like a cerebral “Google map”.
Although we are still far from it, we have crossed an important step towards this goal. Researchers report having developed the first wiring diagram for each neuron in an adult Drosophila brain, or fruit fly, and the 50 million neuronal connections it comprises.
Described as historic, this feat was achieved by an international collaboration of scientistscalled FlyWire Consortium, and published in several scientific articles appearing in the journal Nature (Sources 1 and 2).
A first big step
The diagram of these approximately 139,255 neurons is the first of an entire brain for an animal capable of walking and seeing. Until now, scientists had managed to map the brains of much smaller animalsfor example of a Drosophila larva, with 3,016 neurons, and a nematode worm, with only 302 neurons. Knowing that the estimated number of neurons in the human brain is between 86 and 100 billion.
However, this first step is essential to one day obtaining the mapping of larger brains. In addition, Drosophila is a widely used laboratory modelnotably…
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