How does the mammalian retina detect motion? This classic problem in visual neuroscience has remained unsolved for 50 years. In search of clues, we reconstructed Off-type starburst amacrine cells (SACs) and bipolar cells (BCs) in serial electron microscopic images with help from EyeWire, an online community of “citizen neuroscientists.” Based on quantitative analyses of contact area and branch depth in the retina, we found evidence that one BC type prefers to wire with a SAC dendrite near the SAC soma, while another BC type prefers to wire far from the soma. The near type is known to lag the far type in time of visual response. A mathematical model shows how such “space-time wiring specificity” could endow SAC dendrites with receptive fields that are oriented in space-time and therefore respond selectively to stimuli that move in the outward direction from the soma.

Due to advances in automated image acquisition and analysis, whole-brain connectomes with 100,000 or more neurons are on the horizon. Proofreading of whole-brain automated reconstructions will require many person-years of effort, due to the huge volumes of data involved. Here we present FlyWire, an online community for proofreading neural circuits in a Drosophila melanogaster brain, and explain how its computational and social structures are organized to scale up to whole-brain connectomics. Browser-based 3D interactive segmentation by collaborative editing of a spatially chunked supervoxel graph makes it possible to distribute proofreading to individuals located virtually anywhere in the world. Information in the edit history is programmatically accessible for a variety of uses such as estimating proofreading accuracy or building incentive systems. An open community accelerates proofreading by recruiting more participants and accelerates scientific discovery by requiring information sharing. We demonstrate how FlyWire enables circuit analysis by reconstructing and analysing the connectome of mechanosensory neurons.

Articles you may be interested inPolarization-based all-optical logic controlled-NOT, XOR, and XNOR gates employing electro-optic effect in periodically poled lithium niobate Appl. Phys. Lett. 99, 161117 (2011) We present conceptual designs of an emerging class of logic gates, including NOT, NOR, and NAND, that use traveling spin waves ͑SWs͒ in the gigahertz range and that are based on a MachZehnder-type SW ͑MZSW͒ interferometer. In this MZSW interferometer, logical input and output signals are achievable by the application of currents in order to control the phases that are accumulated by propagating SWs and by either destructive or constructive SW interference, respectively. In this article, the operation mechanism underlying a NOT gate function using a single MZSW interferometer is described and demonstrated numerically. The MZSW interferometer can itself become a NOT gate and be combined in its parallel and serial configurations to form NAND and NOR gates, respectively, which represent emerging classes of universal logic functions for microwave information signal processing.