Connectome-driven neural inventory of a complete visual system
Abstract
Abstract Vision provides animals with detailed information about their surroundings and conveys diverse features such as colour, form and movement across the visual scene. Computing these parallel spatial features requires a large and diverse network of neurons. Consequently, from flies to humans, visual regions in the brain constitute half its volume. These visual regions often have marked structure–function relationships, with neurons organized along spatial maps and with shapes that directly relate to their roles in visual processing. More than a century of anatomical studies have catalogued in detail cell types in fly visual systems 1–3 , and parallel behavioural and physiological experiments have examined the visual capabilities of flies. To unravel the diversity of a complex visual system, careful mapping of the neural architecture matched to tools for targeted exploration of this circuitry is essential. Here we present a connectome of the right optic lobe from a male Drosophila melanogaster acquired using focused ion beam milling and scanning electron microscopy. We established a comprehensive inventory of the visual neurons and developed a computational framework to quantify their anatomy. Together, these data establish a basis for interpreting how the shapes of visual neurons relate to spatial vision. By integrating this analysis with connectivity information, neurotransmitter identity and expert curation, we classified the approximately 53,000 neurons into 732 types. These types are systematically described and about half are newly named. Finally, we share an extensive collection of split-GAL4 lines matched to our neuron-type catalogue. Overall, this comprehensive set of tools and data unlocks new possibilities for systematic investigations of vision in Drosophila and provides a foundation for a deeper understanding of sensory processing.
Article Details
Authors (71)
Aljoscha Nern
Frank Loesche
Shin-ya Takemura
Laura E. Burnett
Marisa Dreher
Eyal Gruntman
Judith Hoeller
Gary B. Huang
Michał Januszewski
Nathan C. Klapoetke
Sanna Koskela
Kit D. Longden
Zhiyuan Lu
Stephan Preibisch
Wei Qiu
Edward M. Rogers
Pavithraa Seenivasan
Arthur Zhao
John Bogovic
Brandon S. Canino
Jody Clements
Michael Cook
Samantha Finley-May
Miriam A. Flynn
Imran Hameed
Alexandra M. C. Fragniere
Kenneth J. Hayworth
Gary Patrick Hopkins
Philip M. Hubbard
William T. Katz
Julie Kovalyak
Shirley A. Lauchie
Meghan Leonard
Alanna Lohff
Charli A. Maldonado
Caroline Mooney
Nneoma Okeoma
Donald J. Olbris
Christopher Ordish
Tyler Paterson
Emily M. Phillips
Tobias Pietzsch
Jennifer Rivas Salinas
Patricia K. Rivlin
Philipp Schlegel
Ashley L. Scott
Louis A. Scuderi
Satoko Takemura
Iris Talebi
Alexander Thomson
Eric T. Trautman
Lowell Umayam
Claire Walsh
John J. Walsh
C. Shan Xu
Emily A. Yakal
Tansy Yang
Ting Zhao
Jan Funke
Reed George
Harald F. Hess
Gregory S. X. E. Jefferis
Christopher Knecht
Wyatt Korff
Stephen M. Plaza
Sandro Romani
Stephan Saalfeld
Louis K. Scheffer
Stuart Berg
Gerald M. Rubin
Michael B. Reiser