Second complete map of a fruit fly brain completed
摘要
研究人员近日宣布完成雄性果蝇大脑全神经元图谱，即“连接组”，该图谱为神经生物学研究提供了加速工具。此前，雌性果蝇连接组已于今年早些时候完成。该项目由霍华德·休斯医学研究所珍利亚研究园区与谷歌的计算机科学家合作完成，双方均表示缺一不可。果蝇大脑虽小，但包含数亿个突触，人工难以在合理时间内完成全图绘制。研究团队期望该连接组能成为神经生物学家理解大脑工作机制的重要
On Friday, researchers announced the completion of a map of every neuron in the brain of a male fruit fly. The "connectome" provides a tool that can accelerate neurobiology research. But it also provides an opportunity to do some science on its own, as the connectome of a female Drosophila had been completed earlier this year. The work also provided the team behind it the opportunity to refine tools that are likely to be applied to ever-more complex nervous systems, including (potentially) those of vertebrates.
The new work involved a collaboration between biologists at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus and computer scientists at Google—both acknowledge that neither could have done the project without the other. Preparation of an entire brain for imaging at the necessary resolution requires a distinct set of skills, as does interpreting what those images indicate. But building a complete picture of the hundreds of millions of synapses in a brain as small as the fruit fly's is a task that can't be achieved by humans in a manageable amount of time.
The people behind the effort expect that in the long term, the effort will be worth it, as the connectome could give neurobiologists a valuable tool for understanding how the brain works.
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