Overview
- The research team published the full connectome of the male Drosophila central nervous system on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026, and released three companion papers that apply the map to taste, vision and sexually dimorphic networks.
- The dataset catalogs roughly 166,700 neurons and millions of synapses across the brain, optic lobes and ventral nerve cord and is available as an open resource for other researchers.
- Researchers built the map by slicing the nervous system, imaging it with high-resolution electron microscopy, using AI to reconstruct neurons and synapses, and then performing extensive human proofreading equivalent to about 44 years of labor.
- Direct comparison with a previously published female connectome shows most sensory and motor circuits are shared between sexes but that specific neural 'switches' reroute signals to sex-specific networks, helping explain different male and female responses to the same stimulus.
- Authors and funders present the release as a technical roadmap for scaling connectomics to vertebrates and for studies that could link wiring to disease mechanisms and inspire more efficient AI and neuroscience experiments.