News Neuroscience

Scientists have traced all 54.5 million connections in a fruit fly’s brain

The new ‘connectome’ hints at how information flows

Digital reconstructions of blue, pink and purple cells make up a fruit fly brain, which is on a white background.

These newly mapped 139,255 nerve cells and their millions of connections allowed a female fruit fly to dodge predators, smell food, find a mate and fly. With this new map in hand, scientists are keen to figure out how the brain does it all.

Tyler Sloan for FlyWire, Princeton University, (Dorkenwald et al/Nature, 2024)

By Laura Sanders

In the brain of a singular fruit fly, nerve cells weave themselves together, enabling flight, mating, eating, sleeping and every other activity of her fly life.