A deep understanding of how the brain controls behaviour requires mapping neural circuits down to the muscles that they control. Here, we apply automated tools to segment neurons and identify synapses in an electron microscopy dataset of an adult female Drosophila melanogaster ventral nerve cord (VNC)¹, which functions like the vertebrate spinal cord to sense and control the body. We find that the fly VNC contains roughly 45 million synapses and 14,600 neuronal cell bodies. To interpret the output of the connectome, we mapped the muscle targets of leg and wing motor neurons using genetic driver lines² and X-ray holographic nanotomography³. With this motor neuron atlas, we identified neural circuits that coordinate leg and wing movements during take-off. We provide the reconstruction of VNC circuits, the motor neuron atlas and tools for programmatic and interactive access as resources to support experimental and theoretical studies of how the nervous system controls behaviour.

要深入了解大脑如何控制行为，需要将神经回路映射到它们控制的肌肉。在这里，我们应用自动化工具来分割神经元并识别成年雌性果蝇腹神经索 (VNC) ¹ 电子显微镜数据集中的突触，其功能类似于脊椎动物脊髓来感知和控制身体。我们发现果蝇 VNC 包含大约 4500 万个突触和 14600 个神经元细胞体。为了解释连接组的输出，我们使用遗传驱动线 ² 和 X 射线全息纳米断层扫描 ³ 绘制了腿部和翅膀运动神经元的肌肉目标。通过这个运动神经元图谱，我们确定了在起飞过程中协调腿部和机翼运动的神经回路。我们提供 VNC 电路的重建、运动神经元图谱以及用于编程和交互访问的工具，作为支持神经系统如何控制行为的实验和理论研究的资源。