"Nature": Revealing the basic principles of brain maturation 8 small bugs bring important breakthroughs

The human brain is extremely complex

Recently, in a research paper published in the top academic journal Nature, scientists have made important breakthroughs in connectomics

The researchers used eight small worms called C.

Compared with the complex human brain, the nematode's nervous system is much simpler, it is relatively easy to describe all the connections in it, and the molecular signals that control development have a lot in common

This small worm is only 1 millimeter long and has only 218 neurons in its body at birth, and 82 neurons are added at the end of the larval development stage

▲A piece of typical nematode "connection group", each point represents a neuron, the line segment between the two points indicates that the neuron forms a connection, the more the connection, the thicker the line segment (picture source: reference [1])

More than 30 years ago, the work of the nematode connection group reached the first milestone, and scientists generated the first nematode connection group

Over the years, scientists have developed a variety of new technologies from sample preparation to image processing and achieved new breakthroughs

These connection groups show that from birth to adulthood, the overall geometry of the brain is preserved, but on a stable and consistent scaffold, there are major changes in chemical synaptic connections

▲The brain 3D model of adult nematodes, with different colors representing different types of cells (picture source: reference [1]; Credit: Dr.

The researchers also found that the flexibility of connections in different parts of the brain is not the same

While identifying several key patterns of brain development, by comparing the connection groups of different individuals, it is also found that each brain has huge differences in connection, and these differences make each brain unique

Note: The original text has been deleted

Reference materials:

[1] Witvliet,D.

[2] Why tiny worm's brain development couldshed light on human thinking.

[3] Zhen lab News Retrieved Aug.