A catalogue of neuronal cell types has often been called a 'parts list' of the brain, and regarded as a prerequisite for understanding brain function. In the optic lobe of Drosophila, rules of connectivity between cell types have already proven to be essential for understanding fly vision. Here we analyse the fly connectome to complete the list of cell types intrinsic to the optic lobe, as well as the rules governing their connectivity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA catalog of neuronal cell types has often been called a "parts list" of the brain, and regarded as a prerequisite for understanding brain function. In the optic lobe of , rules of connectivity between cell types have already proven essential for understanding fly vision. Here we analyze the fly connectome to complete the list of cell types intrinsic to the optic lobe, as well as the rules governing their connectivity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBrains comprise complex networks of neurons and connections. Network analysis applied to the wiring diagrams of brains can offer insights into how brains support computations and regulate information flow. The completion of the first whole-brain connectome of an adult , the largest connectome to date, containing 130,000 neurons and millions of connections, offers an unprecedented opportunity to analyze its network properties and topological features.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFConnections between neurons can be mapped by acquiring and analyzing electron microscopic (EM) brain images. In recent years, this approach has been applied to chunks of brains to reconstruct local connectivity maps that are highly informative, yet inadequate for understanding brain function more globally. Here, we present the first neuronal wiring diagram of a whole adult brain, containing 5×10 chemical synapses between ~130,000 neurons reconstructed from a female .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStarburst amacrine cells are a prominent neuron type in the mammalian retina that has been well-studied for its role in direction-selective information processing. One specific property of these cells is that their dendrites tightly stratify at specific depths within the inner plexiform layer (IPL), which, together with their unique expression of choline acetyltransferase (ChAT), has made them the most common depth marker for studying other retinal neurons in the IPL. This stratifying property makes it unexpected that they could routinely have dendrites reaching into the nuclear layer or that they could have somatic contact specializations, which is exactly what we have found in this study.
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