The synaptic connectivity of neurons is fundamental to how they function. Extracting this information for entire brains is an extremely challenging task. Today, the largest map of synaptic connectivity between neurons has been published in a special issue at Nature. 12 papers describe and analyze the first whole-brain connectome of the fruit fly produced by the FlyWire consortium. Building on an 3D image stack from the brain, the consortium collaboratively proofread an initial reconstruction produced by AI.

The Princeton-led FlyWire consortium comprised members from more than 100 institutions, with major contributions from teams at the University of Cambridge and the University of Vermont. CNC’s own, Dr. Sven Dorkenwald, a Shanahan Fellow, spearheaded this project during his PhD studies. Scientists at the Allen Institute, including UW NBIO Affiliate Forrest Collman, Schneider-Mizell and Dorkenwald, developed the computational infrastructure, CAVE, that made it possible for the consortium to collaboratively work on the connectome dataset. 

On Nature’s landing page, you can view the reconstructed neurons in their full glory: https://www.nature.com/immersive/d42859-024-00053-4/index.html 

You can also access the Codex (interactive resource access) on the FlyWire website, https://codex.flywire.ai/.

Congratulations to Dr. Dorkenwald, Dr. Collman, and the entire FlyWire Consortium!