Image of the Day: Fly Sight

In the developing Drosophila visual system, signals from glia cultivate the growth of neurons from immature cells.

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This timelapse video depicts the developing Drosophila visual system over a six-hour period. Immature cells in the lamina of the optic lobe (magenta) are driven to become neurons by signals from a swath of invading glial cells (green spot above the lamina) from the retina.VILAIWAN M FERNANDES, DESPLAN LAB, NYU'S DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY See V.M. Fernandes et al., “Glia relay differentiation cues to coordinate neuronal development in Drosophila,” Science, 357:886-91, 2017.

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