Two Virtual Fly Brain atlases of the adult fruit fly nervous system have been added to BrainGlobe#
Two atlases based on the JRC2018 unisex templates are now available through BrainGlobe, bringing complementary views of the adult fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) nervous system into the same software ecosystem. Both atlases use data from Virtual Fly Brain (VFB) and the unbiased, symmetric templates described by Bogovic et al. (2020). One provides VFB-painted neuropil ROI annotations for the adult brain; the other provides neuropil and domain annotations for the adult ventral nerve cord (VNC).
Figure 1. Selected labelled regions visualised with brainrender: brain
neuropils AL, CA, IPS, and LOP (left), and VNC domains WTct, HTct, and mVAC
(right). The root meshes are shown as outlines.
JRC2018Unisex brain neuropils atlas#
This atlas includes the JRC2018Unisex adult fly brain template and VFB-painted neuropil regions. It includes the reference and annotation images, region metadata, and VFB’s original meshes, reoriented into BrainGlobe space.
Atlas name:
vfb_jrc2018u_neuropils_flyResolution: 0.5189161 × 1.0 × 0.5189161 µm
Template space: JRC2018Unisex (
VFB_00101567)Coverage: adult brain neuropils
Species: Drosophila melanogaster
Annotations: 46 neuropil regions plus the root structure, arranged as a flat atlas
The JRC2018U neuropils atlas has anisotropic voxel spacing, so in current
brainrender-napari views its proportions may appear distorted, with one axis
stretched relative to the others. The packaged atlas data are unchanged, and
viewer support for anisotropic atlases is being improved.
JRC2018Unisex VNC atlas#
The VNC atlas combines the JRC2018UnisexVNC template with the adult VNC neuropil and domain annotations presented in the systematic nomenclature of Court et al. (2020) and made available through VFB. As in the brain atlas, the package includes VFB’s source meshes alongside the reference image, annotation image, and structure metadata.
Atlas name:
vfb_jrc2018u_vnc_flyResolution: 0.4 µm isotropic
Template space: JRC2018UnisexVNC (
VFB_00200000)Coverage: adult ventral nerve cord neuropils and domains
Species: Drosophila melanogaster
Annotations: 20 visible non-root regions derived from 21 source ROI domains, arranged as a flat atlas
Figure 2. Animated views through the reference and annotation images for the brain neuropils atlas (left) and VNC atlas (right).
Source and citation#
Please cite the JRC2018 template publication when using either atlas:
Bogovic JA, Otsuna H, Heinrich L, et al. An unbiased template of the Drosophila brain and ventral nerve cord. PLOS ONE. 2020;15(12):e0236495. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0236495
When using the VNC atlas, please also cite the source nomenclature publication:
Court RC, Namiki S, Armstrong JD, et al. A systematic nomenclature for the Drosophila ventral nerve cord. Neuron. 2020;107(6):1071-1079.e2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2020.08.005
How do I use the new atlases?#
You can use these atlases for visualisation and analysis like other BrainGlobe atlases. To visualise them, you can:
Install BrainGlobe (instructions).
Open napari and follow our atlas download tutorial, selecting either
vfb_jrc2018u_neuropils_flyorvfb_jrc2018u_vnc_fly.Visualise the reference image, annotations, and meshes as described in our visualisation tutorial.
They can also be loaded programmatically with the BrainGlobe Atlas API:
from brainglobe_atlasapi import BrainGlobeAtlas
brain_atlas = BrainGlobeAtlas("vfb_jrc2018u_neuropils_fly")
vnc_atlas = BrainGlobeAtlas("vfb_jrc2018u_vnc_fly")
Why are we adding new atlases?#
A fundamental aim of the BrainGlobe project is to make brain atlases and other anatomical reference resources easily accessible to researchers across the globe. If you would like to contribute a similar atlas, please get in touch.