⚡️The first immortal fly appeared on Earth
What? Yes! Let's explain in detail:
🟠Once upon a time, the development of artificial intelligence followed the path – “What if we cut Lenin’s brain into the thinnest layers, scan them, determine the connections between cells and get a working model?” Lenin's brain was preserved at the Brain Institute, but this project turned out to be too ambitious so we started with mice. However, the mouse turned out to be incredibly complex object – her brain contains 70 million neurons. For comparison, the human brain has 86 billion neurons, each of which is connected to approximately 2.3 thousand others;
🟠As a result, scientists decided to move gradually. First they deciphered the nervous system of a roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans (302 neurons, 7 thousand synapses), then a larva Ciona intestinalis and another worm. After that, we partially took up the brain of a simple fish and began working with the mouse, but so far we have managed to complete less than 0.1% of work;
🟠And recently, scientists completed the assembly of the connectome adult fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster). It has 139.5 thousand neurons and 54.5 million synaptic connections. Complete reverse engineering of the Drosophila brain became possible thanks to the joint work of scientists from different countries, specialized equipment and 33 man-years of marking. The project started in 2016;
🟠The dataset and brain structure can be found on the website: codex.flywire.ai;
🟠Interestingly, in the Drosophila brain there are separate neurons responsible for backward, forward and fast movement – these are different functions, each of which controls the limbs in its own way. There is even a separate neuron for full stop, because the main structures cannot do this. The brain also has a lot to learn about memory, and about 50 papers have already been published on the topic, including studies that began when the connectome was only half complete;
🟠About half of Drosophila neurons are somehow involved in processing visual information, either directly or through hubs. Her brain has complex internal networks: there are signal transmission neurons, adders for constructing aggregated data, and other structures. Approximately 14% of neurons are responsible for transmitting sensory data deeper into the brain, turning the fruit fly into a kind of real time operating system, analogue of a modern automated process control system (APCS);
🟠So humanity digitized the first fairly complex organism. Now the brain of this first immortal fruit fly can be downloaded and reproduced. Data Size – 14 GB.
