Scientists complete first map of an insect brain

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. This is a big step forward in addressing key questions about how the brain works Jo Latimer, Medical Research Council It is the largest complete brain connectome described yet, researchers say. “But now, we can start gaining a mechanistic understanding of how the brain works.” Jo Latimer, head of neurosciences and mental health at the Medical Research Council, said: “This is an exciting and significant body of work by colleagues at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and others. This detailed understanding may lead to therapeutic interventions in the future Jo Latimer, Medical Research Council “This is a big step forward in addressing key questions about how the brain works, particularly how signals move through the neurons and synapses leading to behaviour, and this detailed understanding may lead to therapeutic interventions in the future.” Current technology is not advanced enough to map the connectome for higher animals such as large mammals. “In the same way that genes are conserved across the animal kingdom, I think that the basic circuit motifs that implement these fundamental behaviours will also be conserved.” In order to build a picture of the fruit fly larva connectome, researchers scanned thousands of slices of the larva’s brain.