{"id":5900,"date":"2023-03-29T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=5900"},"modified":"2023-03-17T05:31:26","modified_gmt":"2023-03-17T05:31:26","slug":"how-we-created-the-first-map-of-an-insect-brain-and-what-it-means-for-our-understanding-of-the-human-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/how-we-created-the-first-map-of-an-insect-brain-and-what-it-means-for-our-understanding-of-the-human-brain\/","title":{"rendered":"How we created the first map of an insect brain \u2013 and what it means for our understanding of the human brain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n \n
\n \n Tomatito\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\nMichael Winding<\/a>, The Francis Crick Institute<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n

Imagine trying to navigate an unfamiliar city but you\u2019ve lost your smartphone. You don\u2019t have a map. And the street signs are in a foreign language. This is how neuroscientists feel about studying the brain. <\/p>\n\n

Billions of neurons in the human brain make trillions of connections<\/a> with each other, forming an intricate maze of roads (neural pathways<\/a>) that make us who we are. A neural pathway is a series of connected neurons that send signals from one part of the brain to another. These networks govern how we think, store our memories and interact with each other. Neuroscientists don\u2019t yet have the technology<\/a> to outline even a small fraction of the connections within the human brain. We have no map. <\/p>\n\n

But an international team of scientists at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology<\/a>, University of Cambridge<\/a>, and Johns Hopkins University<\/a> has made a breakthrough. We mapped the most complex brain to date: an insect. This brain is in many ways similar to the human brain, with two hemispheres, a brainstem-like structure and a spinal cord equivalent that controls the animal\u2019s muscles. <\/p>\n\n

Understanding this brain may give us many clues about how the human brain works.<\/p>\n\n

\n