Of Related Interest

Maybe a thread for items of interest tangentially related to Flywire/drosophilia?

Eyewire Mystics should appreciate this study, which has some comparisons between drosophila and zebrafish!

A Conserved Developmental Mechanism Builds Complex Visual Systems in Insects and Vertebrates

Jean-Stéphane Joly, Gaelle Recher, […], and Volker Hartenstein

A teaser image for you:

6 Likes

This is great! I haven’t seen this study before. It’s interesting how such vastly different creatures can have such similarity in vision.

2 Likes

According to this study:

There are about 200k cells in the Drosphila’s brain and out of it, 100k are in the optic lobes.

3 Likes

Fruit fly's complete brain wiring map offers insights into human brain : Shots - Health News : NPR is this flywire or another lab/project?

2 Likes

Hi,
Welcome back!

AFAIK, it’s a different project and it’s for a fly’s larva. It has “only” over 3000 neurons, while our drosophila has probably about 200k neurons. Quite a difference, I’d say. Yet, the larval project is still very interesting.

1 Like

Hey! Right lol, i didnt look that much into it (neuron # diff. lol). Still interesting seeing similar projects from diff. labs.

1 Like

yeah @Krzysztof_Kruk is right, that larval connectome is a few thousand neurons vs the whole fly brain being much larger. Also since it’s a larva (no legs or wings, just a tiny worm basically) it doesn’t exhibit most of the more complex behaviour that is studied in adults. Still, it’s impressive and important work. We’ll likely import the larval connectome into codex. Can let you guys know when it’s up if you’re interested in exploring.

3 Likes

Fun fact: adult Drosophila has more neurons than a larval zebrafish and more than a lobster.
Also more than a sponge, but that’s not hard to achieve :wink:
However, an elephant has almost 3 times more neurons, than a human. It’s almost the same difference as betweeen humans and gorillas (are we gorillas in the elephant world? :smiley: ).

Source: List of animals by number of neurons - Wikipedia

3 Likes

those are some really cool stats! More than a lobster?!

1 Like

Yeah, I was very surprised. But, lobsters are bugs of the sea, after all :smiley:

3 Likes

Interesting summary of some of the recent studies and discoveries in human brain:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x4_552Lff0 saw this, kinda interesting and ‘related’.

2 Likes

Just had this show up in my feed (a whole 1.5 months late ;~;)

2 Likes