Alexander Shakeel Bates

Our thread on the newly published brain and nerve cord #BANC #connectome, and what #neuroscience stories we can tell with it.

And now this new beast - the full male fly central nervous system connectome - is out in print! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... A phenomenal resource, @ukri.org @hhmijanelia.bsky.social, @cellpress.bsky.social

Excited to share our new #biorxivpreprint: “Sexual dimorphism in the complete connectome of the Drosophila male central nervous system” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We describe the #connectomics reconstruction and analysis of an entire adult #maleCNS #drosophila central nervous system. 1/10

One of the coolest fly neuroscience studies this year. We need to think more about all these understudied links from CNS to body.

1/8 Breathing seems automatic. But it's a finely tuned motor behavior that has to be controlled. In this preprint, I map the circuits that match a fly's respiration to the metabolic demands of flight and mitigate the risk of dehydration. 🧵🪰 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Last week to apply for these posts. This a great time to join this project — every week we’re finding out new and exciting things about the organisation of the mosquito brain — with super collaborators @darbly.bsky.social and @megyounger.bsky.social. Pls share!

Now published open-access: www.nature.com/articles/s41... The BANC connectome! Go use it: codex.flywire.ai?dataset=banc

I was delighted to contribute to this amazing work lead by @asbates.bsky.social, Lee and Wilson labs, and a village of contributors. This is a monument complete with connections to muscles and proprioceptors which will enable us to simulate of the sensorimotor loops of a brain for the first time!!

We are excited to have been part of the community effort that led to the Brain-and-Nerve-Cord (BANC) connectome.

Please check out @darbly.bsky.social & @asbates.bsky.social 's thread at bsky.app/profile/darb..., or HMS News at hms.harvard.edu/news/researc... for a quick overview, or read the full paper at doi.org/10.1038/s415... for details.

In 1986, John White published "The Mind of a Worm," the first complete wiring diagram of any animal's brain. 7,000+ synapses in C. elegans, mapped by hand. This year he won the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences. And he's donating his share to OpenWorm.

Some of you saw a preview of this result at my Cosyne talk last week. We may have had too much fun working on this worm-fly model 🤣🤓🤣 (The digital sphinx may be imagery, but the lessons are real.)

🧵 New preprint led by @bingbrunton.bsky.social, @elliottabe.bsky.social, @lawrencehu.bsky.social We gave a worm brain control of a fly body and it walked What did we learn? Nothing, other than deep reinforcement learning is effective We call it the digital sphinx www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Serious question… is this is a real fly? A startup thinks it's a "real uploaded animal". What do you think? for @theverge.com with @shahabbakht.bsky.social @asbates.bsky.social @anayebi.bsky.social @birchlse.bsky.social @tom-mcclelland.bsky.social www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

A small and interesting neural controller for object pursuit on the fly:

Delighted to share an updated pre-print on how adaptive control in visual pursuit is implemented at the circuit level. New behavior and neuronal data in females (!) shows how two AOTU pathways are key elements in both sexes. Check it out on @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social : doi.org/10.1101/2025...

We have been answering redditors questions today on the #BANC fly connectome in a public AMA if anyone wants to take a look: www.reddit.com/r/askscience...

We integrated our atlas with the connectome using shared features, such as lineage, segment, molecular info (i.e. neurotransmitter, Notch) and neurogenesis timing. We mapped 122 transcriptional pools, each one containing an average of 26 anatomically defined neuron types. 4/8

With this atlas in place, we mapped sex differences in the atlas and adult connectomes, identifying female-specific apoptosis and transcriptional divergence as drivers of sexually dimorphic development. 7/8

Thanks to all authors and support from #MRC_LMB, @neurohub-cnr.bsky.social , @camzoology.bsky.social , #flyconnectome, @wellcometrust.bsky.social , ‪@erc.europa.eu‬, @astra-zeneca.bsky.social and @cruk-ci.bsky.social. FIN

Neuronal diversity is written in transcriptional codes 🧬. But what is the logic of these codes that define cell types and wiring patterns? To find out we built a #scRNAseq developmental atlas of the Drosophila nerve cord and linked it to the #connectome 🪰🧠 #preprint thread ⬇️1/8

Fly labs — Now is the time to show some solidarity and chip in support for this vital resource!

The #BANC connectome sample was the best dissection of ~150 by @mindyisminsu.bsky.social! Behaviourally characterised by @debivort.bsky.social lab, microCT used to assess integrity before continuing. Then Minsu and @jasper-tms.bsky.social imaged over ~7 months Details: github.com/jasper-tms/t...

It’s surreal to think that every neuron and synapse in the fly brain + cord that was dissected almost five years ago (the photo’s still on the lab slack!) is now just a click away on Codex codex.flywire.ai?dataset=banc. This wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible team behind it!

The fly #BANC connectome benefits from specialists’ annotations. @ellenlesser.bsky.social‬ helped us annotate wing sensory neurons and ‪@tony-azevedo.bsky.social‬ wing + other motor neurons, see them here!: ng.banc.community/2025a/wing-n... In Codex: codex.flywire.ai/app/search?f...

Explore neurons that enter/exit the fly central nervous system by body part with this clickable fly!: codex.flywire.ai/app/body_par... (graphics: @mottcallie.bsky.social‬, tool: Arie Matisliah) Vector graphics! github.com/wilson-lab/s... Effector cells in 3D! ng.banc.community/2025a/effere...

For the BANC, ‪@jasper-tms.bsky.social‬ and I have added layers for neurons in other datasets to our neuroglancer environment. Search by name and see your favourite neurons in the same space! See an example here: ng.banc.community/2025a/DNa01-...

So happy to share this project detailing fly wing sensory neurons! I started this project just by asking what the axons of the wing chordotonal organ looked like, and I found many other cool structures along the way.

What a joy to work on such an incredibly collaborative project!! Congrats to all who poured time energy and effort into this new resource. (So excited about this that I had to make a bluesky account!)

Happy Friday! The female adult fly brain-and-nerve-cord (BANC) connectome is now LIVE! Explore the data here: codex.flywire.ai?dataset=banc Check out the preprint here: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

The first full central nervous system connectome dataset of an adult fly, with the most comprehensive annotation of sensory and motor neurons to date. A heroic effort with contributions from many groups, a product of the collaborative spirit of the Drosophila neuroscience community.

With so many new in blue, I thought I would repost this thread about our neurotransmitter prediction across the entire fly brain connectome! Should prove a very useful hypothesis generator for the insect neuroscience community.

In a fly's brain, there are some 140,000 neurons that connect via 54.5 million synapses. Researchers have now mapped *all of them*. That story and more of the best in Science and science in this edition of #ScienceAdviser: www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪 🧠

And our contribution to FlyWire, cell typing the connectome with @jefferis.bsky.social and colleagues, is here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Hard to overstate how pleased I am that the FlyWire consortium converted our FAFB ("Full Adult Fly Brain") EM volume into a connectome, and that the resulting science has been (and will be) so impactful. Thanks to everyone involved. #neuroscience www.nature.com/immersive/d4...