Stanley Heinze @Stanley_heinze@qoto.org

3,013 neurons, half a million synapses: the complete #connectome of the whole #Drosophila larval brain!

Winding, Pedigo et al. 2022. "The connectome of an insect brain" https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.28.516756v1

We’ve mapped and analysed its circuit architecture, from sensory neurons to brain output neurons, as reconstructed from volume electron microscopy, and here is what we found. 1/

#neuroscience #connectomics #vEM #volumeEM

Hello Mastodon friends! #Introduction time…

I study neural networks supporting flexible #Navigation at HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus. Using tractable systems, both biological (flies) and artificial (RNNs), I try to link the structure of neural circuits to their underlying function. In grad school, I studied hippocampal ripples at Caltech, and I love searching for shared operating principles across systems/species.

Here are two of my favorite fly neuron types. Aren’t they beautiful? 🙂

"Structured cerebellar connectivity supports resilient pattern separation" Nguyen, Thomas et al. in @darbly's lab https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05471-w

Spectacular work based on connectomic reconstruction from nanometre-resolution volume electron microscopy and computational modelling that contributes novel findings in cerebellar microcircuitry:

"both the input and output layers of the circuit exhibit redundant and selective connectivity motifs, which contrast with prevailing models. Numerical simulations suggest that these redundant, non-random connectivity motifs increase the resilience to noise at a negligible cost to the overall encoding capacity. This work reveals how neuronal network structure can support a trade-off between encoding capacity and redundancy, unveiling principles of biological network architecture with implications for the design of artificial neural networks."

#cerebellum #connectomics #neuroscience #science #vEM #volumeEM #NeuralBetwork

I have some great undergrads working on Daphnia swimming orientation to polarised celestial light fields. The effect has been noticed before and is very robust. What could this behavior be used for in an animal that is primarily a vertical migrant?

Hi! 👋
It's time for an #introduction here on #neuroscience mastodon.
I'm Hannah Haberkern and I study flies to learn more about how animals navigate. I'm especially interested in visual orientation and the role of plasticity in #navigation. Currently I'm a postdoc at HHMI Janelia in Vivek Jayaraman's lab.

I'll take this new start as an opportunity to start sharing a bit more #pigeon and #quilting content. Here's me with a semi-recent quilt finish, a quilt that's in progress, and my Boab.

Neuro-evo conference at HHMI Janelia on May 15-18, 2023. Join us for the third edition!

Application deadline: Jan 27 (11:59 p.m. EST) 2023.

Apply here: https://www.janelia.org/you-janelia/conferences/neuro-evo-a-comparative-approach-to-cracking-circuit-function-iii

"Historically, with the study of the most convenient animal models —from the giant axon of the squid and the lobster's stomatogastric circuits to Aplysia's synapses and C. elegans' circuits — neuroscientists revealed some of the operating principles of the nervous system, which were then found to apply broadly across phyla. The third instalment of this meeting will once again bring together neuroscientists working on a broad diversity of animal models in an effort to compare circuits across phyla as a means to crack their function."

#NeuroEvo #Janelia #HHMI #conference #science #academia #neuroscience #DevBio #connectomics #connectome

For all electron microscopists out there:

"Crosshair, semi-automated targeting for electron microscopy with a motorised ultramicrotome"

Kimberly Meechan et al. 2022 @eLife from Yannick Schwab's lab at EMBL in collaboration with The Crick institute. https://elifesciences.org/articles/80899

Presents a new method for reliably and "selectively targeting small regions of interest in a resin block by trimming with an ultramicrotome", powered by "user-friendly software to convert X-ray images of resin-embedded samples into angles and cutting depths for the ultramicrotome."

Reviewed by three outstanding electron microscopists: Christel Genaud, Song Pang, and Michaela Wilsch-Bräuninger.

#electronmicroscopy #microCT #Platynereis #science #methods #EMBL #TheCrick

Bothered by ticks? Check this out! Ticks (and mosquitoes) really dont like nootkatone, the chemical that gives grapefruit its distinct smell. This will likely be the next big "bug" repellent on the market, and we are trying to figure out how it works. Love it when behavioral data looks like this!

📰 "Muscles that move the retina augment compound eye vision in Drosophila"
by 🔬 Lisa M Fenk, Sofia C Avritzer, Jazz L Weisman, Aditya Nair, Lucas D Randt, Thomas L Mohren, Igor Siwanowicz, Gaby Maimon
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36289333/ #Drosophila

Have you visited the #FlyWire website yet? Both for helping proofread and analyze the whole #Drosophila brain #connectome, or simply to admire the beautiful renderings of neuronal arbors: https://join.flywire.ai

(See also the #VirtualFlyBrain for #ontology-driven navigation of the fly brain, and access to images of genetic driver lines, and more: https://v2.virtualflybrain.org/org.geppetto.frontend/geppetto?id=VFB_00101567&i=VFB_00101567 )

Wish I had time or resources to create such a beautiful landing page for the larval central nervous system. The #connectome of the whole larval brain is coming soon. For now, see the #vEM images and some ~3,000 published neurons in this #CATMAID server: https://l1em.catmaid.virtualflybrain.org/?pid=1&zp=108250&yp=82961.59999999999&xp=54210.799999999996&tool=tracingtool&sid0=1&s0=2.4999999999999996&help=true&layout=h(XY,%20%7B%20type:%20%22neuron-search%22,%20id:%20%22neuron-search-1%22,%20options:%20%7B%22annotation-name%22:%20%22papers%22%7D%7D,%200.6)

#connectomics