The most complex map of the insect brain has been created. Free Technical Library News

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World's most complex insect brain map ever created

12.03.2023

Researchers understand the structure of the brain and map it in sufficient detail, but they still do not know exactly how it processes data - this requires a detailed "diagram" of the brain. Now scientists have created such a map for a fruit fly larva. It is called a connectome and reflects 3016 neurons and 548 synapses of an insect, reports Neuroscience News. The map will help researchers better understand how insect and animal brains control behavior, learning, bodily functions, and more. This work may even inspire improvements in artificial intelligence networks.

"Until now, we haven't seen the structure of any brain other than the C. elegans roundworm, the low chordate tadpole, and the anelid larva, which have several hundred neurons," said Professor Marta Zlatik from the MRC Molecular Biology Laboratory. "worked without circuits. Without knowing the structure of the brain, we can guess how calculations are made. But now we can start to get a mechanistic understanding of how the brain works."

To create the map, the team scanned thousands of sections of the larva's brain using an electron microscope and then integrated them into a detailed map, marking all the neural connections. Next, they used computational tools to determine likely information flow paths and types of "scheme motifs" in the insect's brain. They even noticed that some of the structural features are very reminiscent of modern deep learning architecture.

Scientists have created detailed maps of the brain of a fruit fly, which is much more complex than a fruit fly larva. However, these maps do not include all the detailed connections needed to obtain a true brain diagram.

In the next step, the team will explore the structures used for behavioral functions such as learning and decision making, and will also study the activity of the connectome when insects perform certain actions. And although the fruit fly larva is a simple insect, the researchers expect to see similar patterns in other animals. "Just as genes are conserved throughout the animal kingdom, I think the basic circuit motifs that implement these fundamental behaviors will also be conserved," Zlatik said.

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