Fabienne Lang in Interesting Engineering:
Scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have put together the complete wiring diagram of the nervous system of an animal.
In the study, the researchers focused on the roundworm called Caenorhabditis elegans or C. elegans’s brains, and have discovered a few differences between the male and female of the species.
By putting together the map of the nervous system, the research assists in understanding nerve connections (thus where the term “connectomics” stems from) which are responsible for different human and animal behaviors.
Dr. Scott Emmons, the study’s lead author and professor of Genetics in the Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience, said, “Structure is always central to biology. The structure of the DNA revealed how genes work, and the structure of proteins revealed how enzymes function. Now, the structure of the nervous system is revealing how animals behave and how neural connections go wrong because of disease.”
More here.