Neuron-Microenvironments Encode Function-Specific Long-Range Connectivity in Drosophila Brain
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We introduce a neuron-microenvironment framework to analyze 139,273 neurons with 50 million synapses in a Drosophila brain, revealing that 7.3% of soma-annotated neurons are not unipolar, challenging a long-standing assumption. Mapping microenvironments into brain coordinates uncovers 482 novel subregions (MicroEnv-atlas) within 78 anatomical regions, patterns missed by conventional morphology. Microenvironmental features increase spatial coherence by 68% and strongly correlate with long-range projections, especially in the Mushroom Body, paralleling spatial motifs in the mammalian hippocampus. Integration with single-cell RNA-seq links these features to molecular communication involving transmembrane transport and metabolism. Clustering neurons by distal projections within the MicroEnv-atlas identifies submodules associated with feeding and multisensory integration.
