Google and HHMI map the complete male fruit fly brain: 166,000 neurons, 125M synapses
ymatias · x · 2026-09-05
Google Research and HHMI Janelia, with collaborators, published in Cell the complete wiring diagram of the male fruit fly's brain and central nervous system — over 166,000 neurons and 125 million synaptic connections, the largest brain map to date.
- The paper, "Sexual dimorphism in the complete connectome of the Drosophila male central nervous system", caps a decade-long partnership using computing and AI for cellular-scale brain mapping.
- With mapping the human brain's 86 billion neurons still out of reach, AI-based connectomics on smaller organisms helps reveal how nervous systems perceive the world and could guide future repair of damaged neural pathways.
- Ongoing work covers fish and mice; the paper and dataset are publicly available.
Related event: AI Helps Map Complete Fruit Fly Connectome: 166,000+ Neurons, Largest Yet(12 posts)→
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