5 ms·

Neuronal wiring diagram of an adult brain

80 points by mpweiher 3y ago

wiz21c 3y ago
In the article they say openness is really important. But when you to the website, you have to use Google Account... It's open yeah, but someone wants to track you on this...
- ggm 3y ago
  Being tracked is different, and does not negate openly available. You don't get into every library in the world simply by turning up: identity has been a part of access since writing was invented. You can't request books from many libraries without identifying yourself and the works requested.
  - Genghis_Khan 3y ago
    In most libraries in the US, browsing the collection--even taking books from the shelves to a table for a while to read and make notes--does not require any sort of identification whatsoever. It's only when we temporarily deprive the library of a copy of a work, i.e., borrow it, that we have to identify ourselves.
    - jakear 3y ago
      In public libraries sure, but not in many academic libraries or other private ones. Which is of course where the more interesting (not mass-produced) content is held.
      - tgv 3y ago
        And nobody would call those open.
  - boesboes 3y ago
    That's not quite the same. I'm not required to make an account with Google to go to the library. Being registered by a government agency and being tracked by multi-national that is famous for abusing tracking data are on a different planet imo. The problem, for me at least, is that I do not use google products. I do not have an account and do not want one. So for me, this is not openly available. We could argue about the merits of being so principled in not using google, but that seems besides the point :) I should be free to no do business with Google and if that precludes me from accessing something, it is not openly available I'd say
  - kwhitefoot 3y ago
    On the contrary in every library I have been to you just walk in and browse the books. Last time I went to a university library a librarian was more than willing to help me find the books I needed and didn't ask any questions at all regarding my identity. I dare say that she would have refused to let me walk out with the books but that's understandable and anyway I wanted to refer to them not take them away.
- ProllyInfamous 3y ago
  I was able to legally download the entire research PDF directly from the linked-to-URL — without logging in [and I do not have any Alphabet accounts, with DNS-block].
  - wiz21c 3y ago
    I reckon I didn't say it: I was looking at downloading the datasets, not the PDF.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- uxifo 3y ago
  Why so salty? It clearly says additional identification methods are coming, and that if you don't have a Google account you can email to get help signing in.
- rmorey 3y ago
  Thank you for this feedback. I am on the FlyWire Codex team, and we are working to 1) provide alternate login means and 2) open up parts of Codex to browsing without login
comfypotato 3y ago
Only a matter of time before this goes the way of the open worm project. Incredible that they’ve increased the number of neurons imageable by this magnitude. A similar increase from here would encompass the human brain. Models of the human brain would likely be indistinguishable in every way, shape, and form from the real thing.
- minihat 3y ago
  What will we do with a completed connectome? Imagine handing a late 1800s scholar a modern processor. Give him a wiring diagram, and a voltmeter. What could he learn from it? The connectome will be a big step, but not the penultimate one, in solving human intelligence.
  - ecks4ndr0s 3y ago
    Maybe trying to reverse engineer it using GNNs until they produce the same output(within some error margin) for various arbitrary inputs? Dunno.
    - Retric 3y ago
      I am sure there’s a great deal we can learn about how the brain actually functions from such simulations. However GNNs don’t really capture the underlying mechanisms very well. Our brains use different kinds of Neurons which also use many different neural transmitters, their location in 3D space matters, as do stuff like blood alcohol content, O2 levels, adrenaline, signal propagation delays, etc it’s a stupidly complicated system even above and beyond the number of neurons.
      - ChainOfFools 3y ago
        Also limiting it to neurons ignores all of the activity and modulatuon that's increasingly being attributed to astrocytes and other CNS "scaffolding"
        3y ago
jmptable 3y ago
Also of interest is the paper, “A leaky integrate-and-fire computational model based on the connectome of the entire adult Drosophila brain reveals insights into sensorimotor processing”, which discusses the results of simulations of this dataset with the Brian2 spiking neural net simulator. They activate the same input neurons in the simulator and real flies and show that there is similar downstream behavior in the sim and real neural circuits.
dpflan 3y ago
The lead author of the paper, Sven Dorkenwald, shared more resources on Twitter. Here are excerpts: """ We are releasing a whole-brain connectome of the fruit fly, including ~130k annotated neurons and tens of millions of typed synapses! Explore the connectome: https://codex.flywire.ai https://codex.flywire.ai Reconstruction paper: https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.27.546656v1 https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.27.546656v1 Annotation paper: https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.27.546055v1 https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.27.546055v1 There are multiple ways to access the data and the number of tools is growing! https://flywire.ai/apps https://flywire.ai/apps Codex: https://codex.flywire.ai https://codex.flywire.ai CATMAID spaces: https://fafb-flywire.catmaid.org https://fafb-flywire.catmaid.org http://Braincircuits.io http://Braincircuits.io: https://braincircuits.io/app?p=fruitfly_fafb_flywire_public https://braincircuits.io/app?p=fruitfly_fafb_flywire_public """ - Original Tweet Thread: https://twitter.com/sdorkenw/status/1674859033076072448 https://twitter.com/sdorkenw/status/1674859033076072448
- porblem 3y ago
  How unfortunate they chose to post to a closed platform. Twitter users may as well not exist to the rest of the world.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
Holy misleading title, batman. The linked preprint is talking about an adult _fruit fly_ brain: >> Here, we present the first neuronal wiring diagram of a whole adult brain, containing 5x10^7 chemical synapses between ~130,000 neurons reconstructed from a female Drosophila melanogaster. Really need some clarification, that title does.

80 points by mpweiher 3y ago

In the article they say openness is really important. But when you to the website, you have to use Google Account... It's open yeah, but someone wants to track you on this...

ggm 3y ago
Being tracked is different, and does not negate openly available. You don't get into every library in the world simply by turning up: identity has been a part of access since writing was invented. You can't request books from many libraries without identifying yourself and the works requested.
- Genghis_Khan 3y ago
  In most libraries in the US, browsing the collection--even taking books from the shelves to a table for a while to read and make notes--does not require any sort of identification whatsoever. It's only when we temporarily deprive the library of a copy of a work, i.e., borrow it, that we have to identify ourselves.
  - jakear 3y ago
    In public libraries sure, but not in many academic libraries or other private ones. Which is of course where the more interesting (not mass-produced) content is held.
    - tgv 3y ago
      And nobody would call those open.
- boesboes 3y ago
  That's not quite the same. I'm not required to make an account with Google to go to the library. Being registered by a government agency and being tracked by multi-national that is famous for abusing tracking data are on a different planet imo. The problem, for me at least, is that I do not use google products. I do not have an account and do not want one. So for me, this is not openly available. We could argue about the merits of being so principled in not using google, but that seems besides the point :) I should be free to no do business with Google and if that precludes me from accessing something, it is not openly available I'd say
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
  On the contrary in every library I have been to you just walk in and browse the books. Last time I went to a university library a librarian was more than willing to help me find the books I needed and didn't ask any questions at all regarding my identity. I dare say that she would have refused to let me walk out with the books but that's understandable and anyway I wanted to refer to them not take them away.
ProllyInfamous 3y ago
I was able to legally download the entire research PDF directly from the linked-to-URL — without logging in [and I do not have any Alphabet accounts, with DNS-block].
- wiz21c 3y ago
  I reckon I didn't say it: I was looking at downloading the datasets, not the PDF.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
uxifo 3y ago
Why so salty? It clearly says additional identification methods are coming, and that if you don't have a Google account you can email to get help signing in.
rmorey 3y ago
Thank you for this feedback. I am on the FlyWire Codex team, and we are working to 1) provide alternate login means and 2) open up parts of Codex to browsing without login

comfypotato 3y ago

Only a matter of time before this goes the way of the open worm project. Incredible that they’ve increased the number of neurons imageable by this magnitude. A similar increase from here would encompass the human brain. Models of the human brain would likely be indistinguishable in every way, shape, and form from the real thing.

minihat 3y ago
What will we do with a completed connectome? Imagine handing a late 1800s scholar a modern processor. Give him a wiring diagram, and a voltmeter. What could he learn from it? The connectome will be a big step, but not the penultimate one, in solving human intelligence.
- ecks4ndr0s 3y ago
  Maybe trying to reverse engineer it using GNNs until they produce the same output(within some error margin) for various arbitrary inputs? Dunno.
  - Retric 3y ago
    I am sure there’s a great deal we can learn about how the brain actually functions from such simulations. However GNNs don’t really capture the underlying mechanisms very well. Our brains use different kinds of Neurons which also use many different neural transmitters, their location in 3D space matters, as do stuff like blood alcohol content, O2 levels, adrenaline, signal propagation delays, etc it’s a stupidly complicated system even above and beyond the number of neurons.
    - ChainOfFools 3y ago
      Also limiting it to neurons ignores all of the activity and modulatuon that's increasingly being attributed to astrocytes and other CNS "scaffolding"
      - 3y ago

jmptable 3y ago

Also of interest is the paper, “A leaky integrate-and-fire computational model based on the connectome of the entire adult Drosophila brain reveals insights into sensorimotor processing”, which discusses the results of simulations of this dataset with the Brian2 spiking neural net simulator. They activate the same input neurons in the simulator and real flies and show that there is similar downstream behavior in the sim and real neural circuits.

dpflan 3y ago

The lead author of the paper, Sven Dorkenwald, shared more resources on Twitter. Here are excerpts: """ We are releasing a whole-brain connectome of the fruit fly, including ~130k annotated neurons and tens of millions of typed synapses! Explore the connectome: https://codex.flywire.ai https://codex.flywire.ai Reconstruction paper: https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.27.546656v1 https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.27.546656v1 Annotation paper: https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.27.546055v1 https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.27.546055v1 There are multiple ways to access the data and the number of tools is growing! https://flywire.ai/apps https://flywire.ai/apps Codex: https://codex.flywire.ai https://codex.flywire.ai CATMAID spaces: https://fafb-flywire.catmaid.org https://fafb-flywire.catmaid.org http://Braincircuits.io http://Braincircuits.io: https://braincircuits.io/app?p=fruitfly_fafb_flywire_public https://braincircuits.io/app?p=fruitfly_fafb_flywire_public """ - Original Tweet Thread: https://twitter.com/sdorkenw/status/1674859033076072448 https://twitter.com/sdorkenw/status/1674859033076072448

porblem 3y ago
How unfortunate they chose to post to a closed platform. Twitter users may as well not exist to the rest of the world.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago

Holy misleading title, batman. The linked preprint is talking about an adult _fruit fly_ brain: >> Here, we present the first neuronal wiring diagram of a whole adult brain, containing 5x10^7 chemical synapses between ~130,000 neurons reconstructed from a female Drosophila melanogaster. Really need some clarification, that title does.