For neuroscientists attending #sfn22: don’t miss the poster by Mitya Chklovskii’s group describing the completion status of the whole brain #connectome of the fairy wasp #Megaphragma, of expected completion early in 2022. Find the poster tomorrow Monday morning, number 328.16 / YY35.
Mitya kindly shared the poster image publicly elsewhere.
This tiny #wasp is famous for being the size of a large paramecium (a unicellular organism) and for enucleating the vast majority of its central neurons while pupating. The adult has less that 10,000 neurons in its central brain yet it isn’t missing any organ or body part. See the paper that jumpstarted this effort:
Polilov AA. The smallest insects evolve anucleate neurons. Arthropod structure & development. 2012 Jan 1;41(1):29-34. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1467803911000946
@albertcardona amazing! I will see if I can squeeze the AL into today’s lecture!
@matthewcobb There's a lot of #connectomics work reaching maturation, in both #insects and #mammals. The next few months will bring quite the number of announcements.
