The Computational Biology Team of the NARL's National Center for High Performance Computing (NCHC), the Brain Research Center of National Tsing Hua University and other academic institutions in Taiwan jointly established the world’s first three-dimensional (3-D) neural image database and constructed a Drosophila (fruit fly) neural wiring diagram. This outstanding achievement has been published as the cover story in the 11 January 2011 issue of Current Biology, an academic joual that has an impact factor of 10.992 and is ranked 15th among 283 jouals in biochemistry and molecular biology. A few well-known scientific websites, such as ScienceBlogs.org demonstrated the 3-D image and animation of the Drosophila brain, and EurekAlert.org posted a special article to introduce the database as well.
In this Drosophila brain research endeavor, the NARL-NCHC is responsible for the construction and maintenance of the “FlyCircuit”, 3-D neural image database, the processing of a large amount of 3-D neural image information using high performance computing resources, analysis of the neural circuits of the Drosophila brain, and the construction of the neural wiring diagram. Researchers around the world can easily search and browse 3-D neural images online by search tools, and upload obtained Drosophila neural images for analysis through the 3-D image service system. The three-dimensional image service system has the following characteristics: 1) worldwide online accessibility to analyze and compare 3-D images via personal computer; 2) automatic procedural construction and management of 3-D image database; and 3) pROVision of services for any combination of 3-D images for simultaneous, multiple users using the cloud architectural image server.
There are about 100,000 nerve cells in the Drosophila brain. By using a confocal microscope, the research team has obtained high-resolution 3-D images of about 16,000 nerve cells of the Drosophila brain, and reconstructed them into a Drosophila “standard brain”. During the analyzing process of the 3-D Drosophila brain neural network, the research team sorted out 41 “local processing units” and 6 “hubs”, which are interconnected with each other by 58 tracts. After the analysis of the links of the local computational units, four known functional modules including the vision, olfactory, auditory, and locomotion are defined. The understanding of the operations of such neural networks is the first step toward the understanding of human brain, because research findings indicate that both Drosophila brain and human brain use six same types of neurotransmitters, and are very similar in the two interlocking hemisphere brain structure.
The online release of research results on 2 December 2010 caused many repercussions in the academic community. The New York Times reported the achievement on December 14. Ralph Greenspan, a neurobiologist at the University of Califoia-San Diego, was quoted as saying in the report that “I think this is the beginning of a new world, and biologists should now be able to match the fruit fly’s well-studied behaviors to the brain circuits established by the new atlas.” In the same article, Josh Dubnau, a neurobiologist at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, also said that by this database, researchers can search and upload Drosophila neural images globally, and thus, the progress can actually be accelerated.
Another researcher, Olaf Spos, who designs computer models of neural circuits at Indiana University, was surprised and said “Yesterday I almost fell out of my chair.” The matrix showing the interconnectivity of the Drosophila brain struck Dr. Spos as amazingly similar to the matrix he had constructed recently for the human cortex. The construction of the Drosophila and mammalian brains seems to follow the same “small world” principle, that of high local clustering of neurons, together with long-range connections.
This database will be updated until a complete map of the total 100 thousand neurons of the Drosophila brain is compiled. The neural images obtained, as well as relevant analysis tools, are open to the public in the “FlyCircuit” database. Several hundred researchers from 50 countries have already registered for the use of the database at the following website: http://www.flycircuit.tw/ .
