Researchers from the University of Oxford have created the first high-resolution molecular atlas of the adult Drosophila melanogaster (common fruit fly) brain, uncovering how the neurons that drive behaviour in adults retain a record of their developmental origins. A companion study, released in parallel, shows how these same developmental programs are selectively reused and modified by sex to generate male and female behavioural diversity.
Together, these papers provide a new framework for understanding how the brain’s architecture arises and evolves, from its developmental blueprint to its functional specialisation.
The work, led by Professor Stephen Goodwin’s group in Oxford’s Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics (DPAG), offers an unprecedented view of neuronal diversity. By integrating multiple single-cell RNA sequencing datasets, the researchers achieved tenfold coverage of the Drosophila central brain, capturing transcriptional information for nearly every individual neuron.
Surprisingly, the team found that the genetic diversity of neurons is far greater than previously thought, with many cell types represented by only a single neuron per hemisphere. Their analyses suggest that transcriptomic and anatomical identities represent complementary and equally informative axes for defining neuronal types. This insight provides a crucial link between molecular diversity and the physical wiring of the brain, bridging developmental and systems-level perspectives.
Read the full story on the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics website.