A Systematic Nomenclature for the Drosophila Ventral Nerve Cord

Robert Court; Shigehiro Namiki; J Douglas Armstrong; Jana Börner; Gwyneth Card; Marta Costa; Michael Dickinson; Carsten Duch; Wyatt Korff; Richard Mann; David Merritt; Rod K Murphey; Andrew M Seeds; Troy Shirangi; Julie H Simpson; James W Truman; John C Tuthill; Darren W Williams; David Shepherd

doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2020.08.005

A Systematic Nomenclature for the Drosophila Ventral Nerve Cord

Neuron. 2020 Sep 23;107(6):1071-1079.e2. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2020.08.005. Epub 2020 Sep 14.

Authors

Robert Court¹, Shigehiro Namiki², J Douglas Armstrong¹, Jana Börner³, Gwyneth Card⁴, Marta Costa⁵, Michael Dickinson⁶, Carsten Duch⁷, Wyatt Korff⁴, Richard Mann⁸, David Merritt⁹, Rod K Murphey³, Andrew M Seeds¹⁰, Troy Shirangi¹¹, Julie H Simpson¹², James W Truman¹³, John C Tuthill¹⁴, Darren W Williams¹⁵, David Shepherd¹⁶

Affiliations

¹ School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB, UK.
² HHMI-Janelia Research Campus, Ashburn, VA 20147, USA; RCAST, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 153-8904, Japan.
³ Biological Sciences, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 33431, USA.
⁴ HHMI-Janelia Research Campus, Ashburn, VA 20147, USA.
⁵ Virtual Fly Brain, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK.
⁶ Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, The California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
⁷ iDN, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
⁸ Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA.
⁹ School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia.
¹⁰ Institute of Neurobiology, University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
¹¹ Department of Biology, Villanova University, Villanova, PA 19085, USA.
¹² Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
¹³ HHMI-Janelia Research Campus, Ashburn, VA 20147, USA; Friday Harbor Laboratories, University of Washington, Friday Harbor, WA 98250, USA.
¹⁴ Department of Physiology & Biophysics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
¹⁵ Centre for Developmental Neurobiology, King's College London, London WC2R 2LS, UK.
¹⁶ School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor LL57 2UW, Bangor, UK. Electronic address: d.shepherd@bangor.ac.uk.

Abstract

Drosophila melanogaster is an established model for neuroscience research with relevance in biology and medicine. Until recently, research on the Drosophila brain was hindered by the lack of a complete and uniform nomenclature. Recognizing this, Ito et al. (2014) produced an authoritative nomenclature for the adult insect brain, using Drosophila as the reference. Here, we extend this nomenclature to the adult thoracic and abdominal neuromeres, the ventral nerve cord (VNC), to provide an anatomical description of this major component of the Drosophila nervous system. The VNC is the locus for the reception and integration of sensory information and involved in generating most of the locomotor actions that underlie fly behaviors. The aim is to create a nomenclature, definitions, and spatial boundaries for the Drosophila VNC that are consistent with other insects. The work establishes an anatomical framework that provides a powerful tool for analyzing the functional organization of the VNC.

Keywords: anatomy; commissure; hemilineage; insect; motorneuron; neuromere; neuropil; ontology; tectulum; tract.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Cell Lineage
Drosophila melanogaster / cytology*
Drosophila melanogaster / physiology
Ganglia, Invertebrate / cytology*
Ganglia, Invertebrate / physiology
Nerve Net / cytology*
Nerve Net / physiology
Neurons / classification*
Neurons / cytology
Neurons / physiology
Terminology as Topic*

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding