The brain of a fruit fly is captured here using a new, large-scale 3-D imaging technique developed by a multi-institutional group of researchers led by MIT and Harvard University.

The method is shockingly fast, and millions of synapses can be analyzed in just a few days. That’s much faster than previously possible. The technique makes use of expanding brain tissue and what’s called lattice light-sheet microscopy. Here, the fruit fly brain is about the size of a poppy seed and contains aro