Philosophy
This site is a mosquito neuroanatomy resource and a repository for imaging data. It includes an online browser for exploring the neuroanatomy of the brain of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, sample 3D reconstructions of the mosquito brain, access to raw data we collected, and instructions for how to work with our data.
All the software used to generate this atlas and the accompanying reconstructions is free and open source. We would like this data to be easy to access and freely available to the scientific community.
We would also like this website to serve as a repository for mosquito neuroanatomy data. Please let us know if you would like to contribute data to this site. If so, we encourage you to use the free analysis pipeline described on this site.
This site is a work in progress and will continue to grow as more mosquito neuroanatomical data is generated.
Description
This site is an online atlas of the brain of Aedes aegypti. Regions of the brain are annotated on a z-stack of a whole-mount female Aedes aegypti brain that has been immunostained for the presynaptic protein Bruchpilot and imaged with 1μm resolution. You can scroll through the brain and highlight different structures.
A 3D reconstruction of the reference brain has been generated. There are videos and images to view online. If you would like full access to the data used to generate these videos, you can download the files and software in the Downloads and Links section.
This website will eventually also contain data on the male Aedes aegypti brain, as well as the expression patterns of newly generated driver lines that express in the nervous system of Aedes aegypti, as well as detailed anatomy of the antennal lobes of the brain.
Lastly, this website contains all the information that you need to use the free image analysis pipeline that we have assembled. This can be used to work with Aedes aegypti, or to work with other insects. This pipeline allows the user to generate a reference brain, make 3D reconstructions and videos, and register imaged brains onto a reference brain.
Please Join Us!
This is a work in progress, so if you see would like to contribute data or expertise, please contact us.
While we are focused primarily on Aedes aegypti, we would like to serve as a resource for all mosquito neuroanatomy, so please get in touch even if you study other species of mosquitoes. Some possible contributions include:
- 3D reconstructions of different brain regions
- Expression patterns of driver lines
- Antibody staining patterns
- Suggestions for annotating your favorite brain region
- Data from other mosquito species
Who We Are
mosquitobrains.org is based in Leslie Vosshall's Laboratory at HHMI-The Rockefeller University.
- Meg Younger directs the project and collected all the data on this site.
- Nick Didkovsky developed the Mosquito Brain Browser.
- Victoria Danan assisted in manual segmentation of the mosquito brain.
- Nicolas Renier developed ClearMap and optimized the software for use with mosquito brain images.
Support
- Leslie Vosshall is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
- mosquitobrains.org was initiated with funding from a pilot grant from the Kavli Neural Systems Institute.
- Meg Younger is funded by the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund For Medical Research
