Neural Map of Living Fruit Fly Larva Captured for First Time

Neuroscience  

The neural activity of an entire central nervous system has been captured in a complex animal for the first time. The video recorded using light-sheet microscopy could help scientists understand how the brain and nerve cord interact to generate behavior.

The neural activity of an entire central nervous system has been captured in a complex animal for the first time.

The work provides researchers with opportunities to comprehensively record from motor circuitry while simultaneously imaging activity across the brain. Such a method may make it possible to systematically study how brain and nerve cord interact to generate behavior.

The video footage, part of a study published in the journal Nature Communications, shows neurons firing in the nervous system of a fruit fly larva, Drosophila melanogaster.

"If some day we can do this with a human brain, then all our neuroscience questions would be answered."

Because of fundamental technical challenges, it has so far not been possible to perform whole-animal functional imaging in a nervous system larger than that of the nematode worm C. elegans. Even in fairly transparent specimens, such as the larval zebrafish, large-scale functional imaging has so far been limited to the brain.

Scientists at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Ashburn, Virginia, imaged the patterns of motor neuron activity in the fruit fly larvae as they crawled backwards and forwards.

The images were captured five times per second for up to an hour, at a resolution high enough to see single neurons firing.

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The team measured the neural activity of the small larva with a technique called light-sheet microscopy. The procedure illuminates the specimen with laser light from both sides, while twin cameras record images from the front and back. The scientists genetically modified the larva’s neurons to make them fluoresce when they fire.

Light-sheet microscopy produces two views of the specimen, usually its back and belly, which build up to produce high-resolution 3D images. They could help scientists understand how the brain and nerve cord interact to generate behavior.

“We are curious to see neural activity as behaviors are being produced,” said Philipp Keller, an author of the study. “By imaging different parts of the nervous system at the same time, we can see how behaviours are controlled and then build models of how it all works.”

Bill Lemon from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute told IFL Science that the process was essentially the "holy grail" of neuroscience research. At the moment, it's impossible to scale up any further than 0.5 mm, but Lemon said that if someone could take the idea further and apply it to a human brain, the impications could be huge.

"If some day we can do this with a human brain, then all our neuroscience questions would be answered," he said.

SOURCE  The Guardian

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