Inside the fruit fly brain and what it might mean for human health, with Greg Jefferis | Wellcome

The inner workings of the human brain are still a mystery to us. For example, we don’t know exactly how individual neurons work together to solve complex problems.

Now, a fully mapped fruit fly brain might provide some clues.

We’re proud to be one of the funders of an ambitious project that reconstructed a full connectome of the fruit fly Drosophila’s brain using artificial intelligence.

A connectome is a complete description of the wiring of the brain. It is a map of all the brain’s neurons and connections.

This map is a useful reference for researchers to understand how circuit systems in the brain work. Ultimately, this could have an impact on our understanding of neuroscience and brain diseases.

Greg Jefferis, Neuroscientist and Joint Head of the Division of Neurobiology at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, led one of the teams of researchers that worked on this project.

In this Wellcome Guest Lecture, hear from Greg about why they chose to map the fruit fly’s brain and how connectomes might be useful to human health.


Chapter titles:

00:00 Intro
04:22 Why study the fruit fly brain?
05:38 How connectomics began
07:14 What is a connectome?
07:25 Using AI to map a connectome
11:19 What can we do with a connectome?
14:33 Research on the fruit fly connectome
16:58 Should we look at other animals?
18:30 The future of connectomics
21:15 Connectomics to help understand how brains work
22:10 Q&A: What attracted you to fly brain research?
23:24 Q&A: What is it like collaborating across disciplines on this work?
25:14 Q&A: What are the possibilities for using connectomes to correct diseases of the brain?
27:25 Q&A: Can a human connectome be used as a reference just like the Human Genome Project?
29:27 Q&A: Have you received any questions about the brain from philosophers?
31:24 Q&A: What policies need to be put in place for a potential human brain connectome?
33:18 Q&A: Can external environmental conditions influence the development of the brain?


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