{
  "abstract": "Just as genomes revolutionized molecular genetics, connectomes (maps of neurons and synapses) are transforming neuroscience. To date, the only organisms with complete connectomes are worms 1–3 , sea squirts 4 and comb jellies 5 (10 3 –10 4 synapses). By contrast, the fruit fly is more complex (10 8 synaptic connections), with a brain that supports learning and spatial memory 6,7 and an intricate ventral nerve cord analogous to the vertebrate spinal cord 8–12 . Here we report a densely reconstructed adult fly connectome that unites the brain and ventral nerve cord, and we leverage this resource to investigate principles of neural control. We show that effector neurons (motor neurons, endocrine cells and efferent neurons targeting the viscera) are primarily influenced by sensory neurons in the same body part, forming local feedback loops. These local loops are linked by long-range circuits that involve ascending and descending neurons organized into behaviour-centric modules. Single ascending and descending neurons are often positioned to influence the voluntary movements of multiple body parts, together with the endocrine cells or visceral organs that support those movements. Brain regions involved in learning and navigation supervise these circuits. These results reveal an architecture that is distributed, parallelized and embodied, reminiscent of distributed control architectures in engineered systems 13,14 .",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Centre for Neural Circuit and Behaviour, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. Alexander_Bates@hms.harvard.edu",
    "Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. Alexander_Bates@hms.harvard.edu",
    "Centre for Neural Circuit and Behaviour, Universityof Oxford, Oxford, UK",
    "Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA",
    "Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. jasper.s.phelps@gmail.com",
    "Neuroengineering Laboratory, Brain Mind Institute and Institute of Bioengineering, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland. jasper.s.phelps@gmail.com",
    "Neuroengineering Laboratory, Brain Mind Institute and Institute of Bioengineering, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland",
    "Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA",
    "Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA",
    "Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA",
    "Yikes, Baltimore, MD, USA",
    "Yikes LLC, Baltimore, MD, USA",
    "Department of Biology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA",
    "Aelysia LTD, Bristol, UK",
    "Aelysia, Bristol, UK",
    "Psychology Department, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO, USA",
    "Beijing Institute for Brain Research, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China",
    "Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, Beijing, China",
    "Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA",
    "Eyewire, Boston, MA, USA",
    "Neurobiology Division, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK",
    "Genetics Department, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany",
    "Zoology Department, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK",
    "Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA",
    "Department of Neurobiology and Biophysics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA",
    "School of Neuroscience, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA",
    "Department of Biology, University of Nevada Reno, Reno, NV, USA",
    "Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA",
    "Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA",
    "Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA",
    "Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, Martinsried, Germany",
    "Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA",
    "Institute of Neurobiology, University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus, San Juan, Puerto Rico",
    "Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA",
    "HHMI Janelia, Ashburn, VA, USA",
    "Institute of Neuroscience, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China",
    "Zetta AI LLC, Sherrill, NY, USA",
    "Zetta AI, Sherrill, NY, USA",
    "School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK",
    "Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology(JAIST), Nomi, Japan"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 100,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1,
        2,
        3
      ],
      "name": "Alexander Shakeel Bates",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-1195-0445"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4,
        5,
        3,
        6
      ],
      "name": "Jasper S. Phelps",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-8033-258X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        7,
        8,
        3
      ],
      "name": "Minsu Kim",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-0074-6684"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Helen H. Yang",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5140-9664"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        9
      ],
      "name": "Arie Matsliah",
      "orcid": "0009-0001-4490-2028"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Zaki Ajabi",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-4411-4005"
    },
    {
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        11
      ],
      "name": "Eric Perlman",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5542-1302"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Kevin M. Delgado"
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      "name": "Mohammed Abdal Monium Osman",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-8606-6518"
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      "name": "Christopher K. Salmon",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-5732-8117"
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      "name": "Jay Gager",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-8001-2604"
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      "name": "Benjamin Silverman"
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      "name": "Sophia Renauld",
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      "name": "Farzaan Salman",
      "orcid": "0009-0001-2937-807X"
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      "name": "Janki Patel"
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      "name": "Matthew F. Collie",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-3933-529X"
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      "name": "Jingxuan Fan",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-7860-4558"
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      "name": "Diego A. Pacheco",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-1638-2376"
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      "name": "Yunzhi Zhao",
      "orcid": "0009-0003-3021-2389"
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      "name": "Wenyi Zhang",
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      "name": "Laia Serratosa Capdevila",
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      "name": "Ruairí J.V. Roberts",
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      "name": "Eva J Munnelly",
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      "name": "Nina Griggs"
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      "name": "Borja Moya‐Llamas",
      "orcid": "0009-0008-4560-2976"
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      "name": "Zuoyu Zhang",
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      "name": "Ryan T. Maloney",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-6111-7822"
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      "name": "Szi-chieh Yu",
      "orcid": "0009-0001-9684-0156"
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      "name": "Amy Robinson Sterling",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-4961-3954"
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      "name": "Marissa Sorek",
      "orcid": "0009-0008-7636-0746"
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      "name": "Krzysztof Kruk",
      "orcid": "0009-0005-9305-7042"
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      "name": "Nikitas Serafetinidis"
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      "name": "Serene Dhawan",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-2872-1948"
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      "name": "Finja Klemm",
      "orcid": "0009-0005-3800-3244"
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      ],
      "name": "Paul S Brooks",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5998-6378"
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      "affs": [
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        24
      ],
      "name": "Ellen Lesser",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-7929-0503"
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      ],
      "name": "Jessica M. Jones",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-3638-255X"
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      ],
      "name": "Sara E. Pierce-Lundgren",
      "orcid": "0009-0009-4589-761X"
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      "name": "Su-Yee J. Lee",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5160-9930"
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      "name": "Yichen Luo",
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      "name": "Andrew P. Cook",
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      "name": "Theresa H. McKim",
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      "name": "Dimitrios Stasi Giakoumas",
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      "name": "Benjamin Gorko",
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      "name": "Justin Ellis-Joyce"
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      "name": "Jiayi Zhang"
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      "name": "Emily C. Kophs",
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      "name": "A Burke",
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      "name": "James Hebditch"
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      "name": "Kyle Patrick Willie"
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      "name": "Ryan Willie"
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      "name": "Sergiy Popovych"
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      "name": "Dodam Ih",
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      "orcid": "0000-0002-2077-8165"
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      "name": "Akhilesh Halageri",
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  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/4p40yj035kghd.bib",
  "cited_by": 68,
  "doi": "10.1038/s41586-026-10735-w",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "4p40yj035kghd",
  "issns": [
    "0028-0836",
    "1476-4687"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10735-w",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2804|Neurobiology and Insect Physiology Research"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W4412828391",
  "pdf_url": null,
  "pmcid": "PMC12324551",
  "pmid": "40766407",
  "published": "2026-06-08",
  "publisher": "Nature Portfolio",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/4p40yj035kghd.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T13:26:53Z",
      "native_id": "W4412828391",
      "source": "openalex",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10735-w"
    },
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T13:26:53Z",
      "native_id": "W7163899002",
      "source": "openalex",
      "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13518251/"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "openalex:2804|Neurobiology and Insect Physiology Research",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Distributed control circuits across a brain-and-cord connectome",
  "title_text": "Distributed control circuits across a brain-and-cord connectome",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-08T13:20:48Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/4p40yj035kghd",
  "venue": "Nature",
  "versions": []
}