At the Town Hall we mentioned to researchers that we want to put together a Known Unknowns resource (that is, a list of all the cells that aren’t yet labeled in FlyWire, so need to be found and annotated).
To that end, @Amalia_Braun ( Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence ) mentioned that she has been looking at visual projection neurons “Lobula Plate-Lobula Columnar neurons” (LPLC) and “Lobula-Lobula Plate Columnar neuron” (LLPC) neurons; each of which has 3 subtypes.
Amalia “labeled about 100 LPLC1 / LPLC2 neurons a while ago (which is definitely not all of them). However, LPLC4 is not labelled at all yet. But I think I have quite some IDs for LPLC4. So I could label at least these ones. This is also only for the right hemisphere. In the left optic lobe- none of the LPLCs seem to be labeled.”
Here is a screenshot of some of the cells on the right. Craaaazy!
Would anyone be interested in helping to track these down?
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Here are some followup resource from Amalia:
Also something that is important: Some LC (Lobula Columnar) neurontypes terminate in the same regions of the central brain. so it can happen that you not only get LPLC neurons as visual projection neurons in these brain areas.
they look different in the optic lobe though. So its fairly easy to tell them apart since LC neurons don’t go to the lobula plate. FlyWire
I also made a little summary of all three subtypes of LPLC neurons that I identified already. I think there are the most obvious differences quite nicely visible: FlyWire
LPLC1: green, LPLC2: red, LPLC4, blue
Paper reference for visual projection neurons: Visual projection neurons in the Drosophila lobula link feature detection to distinct behavioral programs - PMC
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Hi everyone,
and thanks Amy for spreading the word! It would be really great to find some help.
The individual neurons I identified already (which you can see at the pictures) are only some of each subtype so there are definitely more to find. So far its also only the right hemisphere.
Just today I checked also on the left side and found some ‘example’ neurons for each subtype. I also annotated them, so soon you also can find them on Codex.
For the right hemisphere you can find example neurons for all three subtypes on Flywire here:
FlyWire LPLC1/2/4 right side
For the left hemisphere you can find example neurons on Flywire here:
LPLC1: FlyWire LPLC1_left
LPLC2: FlyWire LPLC2_left
LPLC4: FlyWire LPLC4_left
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I’ll gladly help with searching for these neurons. I wanted to deepen my knowledge about cells from the Lobula region anyway, so this will be a great opportunity for that.
Firstly, I’ll finish updating the Classifier script and quickly do the rough classification of the cells, I’ve already completed, then I will deep dive into this topic.
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Here are my findings:
LPLC1_left
LPLC2_left
LPLC4_left
LPLC1_right
LPLC2_right
LPLC4_right
There are probably still some missing cells, but most should be in the links above.
I’ve submitted all the identifications to the server.
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Wow this is amazing! We are giving an update to the NIH (National Institutes of Health) tomorrow about FlyWire and I plan to mention this Known Unknown story!
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Wooow!! This is so great! Thank you so much for your help!
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You’re welcome! It was quite fun and a nice change from the regular FW playing.
I’d happily do more such stuff, if there will be a need for.
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