̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Johns Hopkins ̽��ֱ��

First wiring map of insect brain complete

jg533 — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 08:49:27 +0000

This will help scientists to understand the basic principles by which signals travel through the brain at the neural level and lead to behaviour and learning.

An organism's nervous system, including the brain, is made up of neurons that are connected to each other via synapses. Information in the form of chemicals passes from one neuron to another through these contact points.

̽��ֱ��map of the 3016 neurons that make up the larva of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster’s brain, and the detailed circuitry of neural pathways within it, is known as a ‘connectome’.

This is the largest complete brain connectome ever to have been mapped. It is a huge advance on previous work to map very simple brain structures including the roundworm C. elegans, which only has several hundred neurons.

Imaging entire brains has until recently been extremely challenging. Now, technological advances allow scientists to image the entire brain of the fruit fly larvae relatively quickly using electron microscopy, and reconstruct the brain circuits from the resulting data.

̽��ֱ��fruit fly larva has similar brain structures to the adult fruit fly and larger insects, and has a rich behavioural repertoire, including learning and action-selection.

“ ̽��ֱ��way the brain circuit is structured influences the computations the brain can do. But, up until this point, we haven’t seen the structure of any brain except in very simple organisms,” said Professor Marta Zlatic at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB).

Zlatic led the research together with Professor Albert Cardona at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and the MRC LMB, and Dr Michael Winding at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. ̽��ֱ��study, which also involved collaborators from both the UK and the US, is published today in the journal Science.

She added: “Until now, the actual circuit patterns involved in most brain computations have been unknown. Now we can start gaining a mechanistic understanding of how the brain works.”

Current technology is not yet advanced enough to map the connectome of more complex animals such as large mammals. But because all brains involve networks of interconnected neurons, the researchers say that their new map will be a lasting reference for future studies of brain function in other animals.

“All brains of all species have to perform many complex behaviours: for example they all need to process sensory information, learn, choose food, and navigate their environment. In the same way that genes are conserved across the animal kingdom, I think that the basic circuit patterns that drive these fundamental behaviours will also be conserved,” said Zlatic.

To build a picture of the fruit fly larva connectome, the team used thousands of slices of the larva’s brain imaged with a high-resolution electron microscope, to reconstruct a map of the fly’s brain - and painstakingly annotated the connections between neurons. As well as mapping the 3016 neurons, they mapped an incredible 548,000 synapses.

̽��ֱ��researchers also developed computational tools to identify likely pathways of information flow and different types of circuit patterns in the insect’s brain. They found that some of the structural features are similar to state-of-the-art deep learning architecture.

“ ̽��ֱ��most challenging aspect of this work was understanding and interpreting what we saw. We were faced with a complex neural circuit with lots of structure. In collaboration with Professor Priebe and Professor Vogestein’s groups at Johns Hopkins ̽��ֱ��, we developed computational tools to predict the relevant behaviours from the structures. By comparing this biological system, we can potentially also inspire better artificial networks,” said Zlatic.

“This is an exciting and significant body of work by colleagues at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and others,” said Jo Latimer, Head of Neurosciences and Mental Health at the Medical Research Council.

She added: “Not only have they mapped every single neuron in the insect’s brain, but they’ve also worked out how each neuron is connected. This is a big step forward in addressing key questions about how the brain works, particularly how signals move through the neurons and synapses leading to behaviour, and this detailed understanding may lead to therapeutic interventions in the future.”

̽��ֱ��next step is to delve deeper to understand, for example, the brain circuitry required for specific behavioural functions, such as learning and decision making, and to look at activity in the whole connectome while the insect is doing things.

Adapted from a press release by the Medical Research Council

Reference

Winding, M et al: ‘ ̽��ֱ��connectome of an insect brain.’ Science, 10 March 2023. DOI: 10.1126/science.add9330

Researchers have built the first ever map showing every single neuron and how they’re wired together in the brain of the fruit fly larva.

Now we can start gaining a mechanistic understanding of how the brain works.

Marta Zlatic

Map of the fruit fly brain

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Cambridge partners with Schmidt Futures in new software engineering network

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 10:39:36 +0000

Schmidt Futures and its partner institutions are establishing the Virtual Institute of Scientific Software (VISS), starting with a network of four centres based at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Georgia Institute of Technology, the Johns Hopkins ̽��ֱ�� and the ̽��ֱ�� of Washington.

This interdisciplinary virtual institute will address the growing demand for software engineers with backgrounds in science, complex data and mathematics who can build dynamic, scalable, open software to facilitate accelerated scientific discovery across fields.

While science has become increasingly reliant on complex programming and technology, many researchers lack the training or experience in software engineering, tools and methods to produce effective, reliable, and scalable solutions. As a result, successful research and scientific discovery is sometimes delayed as researchers looking to conduct further experiments struggle to adapt unstable and outdated programming.

VISS seeks to improve the quality of research, accelerate advancements and encourage scalable open-source solutions by providing scientific researchers with access to full-time professional engineers and state of the art technology to develop high quality, maintainable and adaptable software.

“Schmidt Futures’ Virtual Institute for Scientific Software will accelerate the pace of scientific discovery through the development of robust, well-engineered software, supporting longer-term platforms and systems, encouraging best practices in open science, and providing access to techniques such as high-end computing, massive databases, and machine learning,” said Elizabeth McNally, Executive Vice President, Schmidt Futures.

Cambridge's Institute of Computing for Climate Science (ICCS) will apply its existing expertise in climate sciences and artificial intelligence with the research teams from Schmidt Futures’ Virtual Earth Systems Research Institute (VESRI) to address the specific computation and research software needs in the area of climate modelling.

̽��ֱ��centre represents a collaboration between Cambridge Zero, the Departments of Computer Science and Technology, Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and ̽��ֱ�� Information Services. ̽��ֱ��other three centres will be dedicated to a range of scientific focus areas, including astrophysics, life sciences, engineering and climate.

“With this truly visionary new institute, Cambridge will blend its world-leading climate science, software engineering and computer science expertise,” said Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen J Toope. “This interdisciplinary powerhouse will enable the development of next-generation climate models. We are delighted to be partnering with Schmidt Futures and engaging with the international research community to inform the response to our most urgent global challenge.”

̽��ֱ��ICCS will be led by Emily Shuckburgh (Academic Director; Cambridge Zero), Dominic Orchard (Co-director; Computer Science/Software Engineering), Chris Edsall (Co-director; Engineering), and Colm-cille Caulfield (Co-director; Science). All have a long-term research agenda to improve understanding of our changing climate through the development, implementation, maintenance, and dissemination of models for scientific computing, data assimilation and analysis.

Being part of the ̽��ֱ��, ICCS will also have a significant education and training component, through the commitment towards sharing its scientific insights openly and broadly. ICCS will play a key role in Cambridge Zero, the ̽��ֱ��'s climate change initiative, that is identifying routes to the creation of a sustainable, zero-carbon future for all.

Over the coming months, ICCS will build a team of researchers and software engineers who share the vision of the power of modern computer science, data science and software engineering for addressing the pressing challenges of our changing climate.

Director of Cambridge Zero and Academic Director of ICCS, Dr Emily Shuckburgh, said “ ̽��ֱ��Institute of Computing for Climate Science will be the first of its kind, supporting the application of the latest developments in computer science and data science to climate modelling. It is tremendously exciting to launch this Institute, which will be the core of an international network of climate research initiatives supported by Schmidt Futures, and will help drive forwards the frontiers of climate science.”

̽��ֱ��interdisciplinary network of centres, which will benefit from the experience of the Schmidt Software Academy at Caltech, will have an initial lifespan of five years.

Adapted from a release published by Schmidt Futures.

Software engineers will bridge the gap between modern science and scalable complex software at four leading universities.

̽��ֱ��Institute of Computing for Climate Science will be the first of its kind, supporting the application of the latest developments in computer science and data science to climate modelling

Emily Shuckburgh

Sir Cam

Centre for Mathematical Sciences

Yes

How to escape a black hole

sc604 — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 19:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��results, published in the journal Science, are based on new radio observations tracking a star as it gets torn apart by a black hole. Such violent events yield a burst of light which is produced as the bits and pieces of the star fall into the black hole. For the first time, the researchers were able to show that this burst of light is followed by a radio signal from the matter that was able to escape the black hole by travelling away in a jetted outflow at nearly the speed of light.

̽��ֱ��discovery of the jet was made possible by a rapid observational response after the stellar disruption (known as ASAS-SN-14li) was announced in December 2014. ̽��ֱ��radio data was taken by the by the 4 PI SKY team at Oxford, using the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager Large Array located in Cambridge.

“Previous efforts to find evidence for these jets, including my own, were late to the game,” said Sjoert van Velzen of Johns Hopkins ̽��ֱ��, the study’s lead author. Co-author Nicholas Stone added that “even after they got to the game, these earlier attempts were observing from the bleachers, while we were the first to get front row seats.”

In this branch of astronomy, the ‘front row’ means a distance of 300 million light years, while previous observations were based on events at occurring least three times as far away.

Jets are often observed in association with black holes, but their launch mechanism remains a major unsolved problem in astrophysics. Most supermassive black hole are fed a steady diet of gas, leading to jets that live for millions of years and change little on a human timescale. However, the newly discovered jet behaved very differently: the observations show that following a brief injection of energy, it produced short but spectacular radio fireworks.

̽��ֱ��observed jet was anticipated by the so-called scale-invariant model of accretion, also known as the Matryoshka-doll theory of astrophysics. It predicts that all compact astrophysical objects (white dwarfs, neutron stars, or black holes) that accrete matter behave and look the same after a simple correction based on solely the mass of the object. In other words, the larger Matryoshka doll (a supermassive black hole) is just a scaled-up version of the smaller doll (a neutron star). Since neutron stars consistently produce radio-emitting jets when they are supplied with a large amount of gas, the theory predicts that supermassive black holes should do the same when they swallow a star.

“I always liked the elegant nature of the scale-invariant theory, but previous observations never found evidence for the new type of jet it predicted,” said van Velzen. “Our new findings suggest that this new type of jet could indeed be common and previous observations were simply not sensitive enough to detect them.”

“These jets are a unique tool for probing supermassive black holes,” said co-author Dr Morgan Fraser of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy. “While black holes themselves do not emit light, by observing how a star is torn apart as it falls in we can indirectly study the sleeping monster at the heart of a galaxy.”

̽��ֱ��study hypothesises that every stellar disruption leads to a radio flare similar to the one just discovered. Ongoing surveys such as the Gaia Alerts project, led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge will find many more of these rare events.

“Gaia has exceptionally sharp eyes, and is ideally suited to find events like this, which occur in the very centres of galaxies,” said co-author Dr Heather Campbell, also from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy. “Finding more of these rare events may further our understanding of the processes that allow black holes to launch such spectacular outflows.”

Reference:
Van Velzen, S. et. al. ‘A radio jet from the optical and X-ray bright stellar tidal disruption flare ASASSN-14li.’ Science (2015). DOI: 10.1126/science.aad1182

Adapted from a Johns Hopkins press release.

An international team of astrophysicists, including researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, has observed a new way for gas to escape the gravitational pull of a supermassive black hole.

These jets are a unique tool for probing supermassive black holes

Morgan Fraser

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab

Detail from animation of a black hole devouring a star

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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