In 2023, HLTCOE Principal Investigator Carey Priebe and Research Affiliate Youngser Park were part of a team that produced the first complete brain-wiring diagram of an insect brain. The brain connectome of a fruit fly larva and the techniques developed to map it will help scientists better understand, and eventually map, more complex brains. The apparent similarities between the neural circuits in the fruit fly brain and neural networks used in machine learning indicate that the fly connectome may also contribute to advancements in the field of artificial intelligence. Priebe and Park’s research is featured in the National Geographic article “7 medical breakthroughs that gave us hope in 2023.”