Google/Janelia's fruit-fly brain map spawns viral drone, robot and game demos
Hobbyists are wiring a complete 166,000-neuron fly connectome into drones, a walking robot, Minecraft and Doom, delighting the scientists who built the map.
What to know
- Janelia Research Campus and Google published a complete connectome of an adult male fruit fly: 166,000 neurons and about 25 million connections, freely available online.
- Hobbyists, aided by AI coding tools, have rapidly copied the simulated brain into drones, a walking robot, Minecraft, Doom, and games like poker and blackjack.
- Researchers behind the map say they did not anticipate these applications but see them as evidence of open science's reach; some creators have pushed back on claims that overstate what the demos actually prove.
- The connectome effort is part of a broader push at Janelia to map brains of other small organisms, which researchers hope could eventually inform understanding of human conditions like Alzheimer's.
The dispute Whether the drone/robot demos represent the fly brain's connections genuinely driving novel behavior, or whether some builders are overselling what their code actually does. · positions read across 4 posts and comments
The simulated connectome is genuinely producing autonomous, untrained behavior in robots and drones — a striking result.
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“166,700 fruit fly neurons just took over 3 drones, and nobody taught them to fly.”
@SpikeCalls · x ↗
Some creators are overstating what their demos actually demonstrate about the connectome.
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“Some may be overstating what they've shown, but I can speak to my own.”
@evnsnclr · x ↗
“Our goal is not simply to demonstrate that a fly brain is capable of generating movement in a fly — which we obviously know — but how”
Nelson Spruston, neuroscientist, Janelia Research Campus · Philadelphia Inquirer ↗ · Sep 16
Nelson Spruston Vice president and executive director, Janelia Research CampusArie Matsliah Research scientist, Princeton UniversityMark Unthank Software developer (Italy)@Frank_web33 X/social media creator@SpikeCalls X/social media creator@evnsnclr X/social media creator
How it unfolded 5 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlesposts
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5
Press roundup catalogs the fruit-fly simulation wave
The Philadelphia Inquirer surveyed the trend, describing simulated flies parallel parking a car, playing Doom and Minecraft, solving a Rubik's Cube, dancing to 'Y.M.C.A.,' and playing poker and blackjack, and quoted Janelia and Princeton researchers on the unexpected uses of their data.
“It’s almost becoming a meme now.”
— Arie Matsliah -
first by Philadelphia Inquirer, 6d ago · also NY Post
1 more headline
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- 1 day quiet
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4
Minecraft creator pushes back on overstated claims
Responding to a challenge from @EMostaque, @evnsnclr acknowledged some creators may be overstating what their simulations demonstrate, while defending their own three-week project running the full connectome inside Minecraft.
“Some may be overstating what they've shown, but I can speak to my own.”
— @evnsnclr -
@EMostaque Some may be overstating what they've shown, but I can speak to my own. I've spent about three weeks integrating a fruit-fly connectome into Minecraft and shared a demo that got a lot of attention. It runs the full 166,700 neurons using the fly's mapped connections, including motor neuron...
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Three copies of the fly brain fly three drones untrained
@SpikeCalls followed up with a demo copying the connectome three times, one per drone, with no additional training, describing the drones as having 'taken over' without anyone teaching them to fly.
“166,700 fruit fly neurons just took over 3 drones, and nobody taught them to fly.”
— @SpikeCalls -
166,700 fruit fly neurons just took over 3 drones, and nobody taught them to fly. Scientists mapped the full brain of 1 real fly, every neuron and all 25 million connections, and put it online for free. Someone copied that brain 3 times and plugged each copy into a drone. No
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2
Simulated fly brain flies a drone using a single camera
@SpikeCalls posted a demo in which a copy of the 166,700-neuron connectome, fed input from a single camera watching an open hand, piloted a drone around a bedroom.
“166,700 fruit fly neurons are flying a drone around my bedroom.”
— @SpikeCalls -
166,700 fruit fly neurons are flying a drone around my bedroom. 1 camera watches my open hand and that's the whole input. The panel in the middle is the brain running live 166,700 neurons, 25 million connections, the full reconstructed map of a fruit fly's head. Camera reads
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1
Hobbyist wires simulated fly brain into a walking robot
@Frank_web33 posted that they connected a running simulation of the fly connectome to a physical Strandbeest-style walking robot, showing the simulated neural activity driving the machine.
“THE FLY BRAIN ESCAPED THE COMPUTER. I PUT IT INSIDE A PHYSICAL ROBOT.”
— @Frank_web33 -
THE FLY BRAIN ESCAPED THE COMPUTER. I PUT IT INSIDE A PHYSICAL ROBOT. Scientists released a reconstructed map containing 166,700 neurons from a fruit fly. I connected it to a Strandbeest. The panel in the top-right shows the simulated brain running. Its neural activity is
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background
Janelia and Google publish full fruit-fly brain connectome — Researchers at the Janelia Research Campus (Howard Hughes Medical Institute), working with Google, completed and released a full map of an adult male fruit fly's 166,000 neurons and roughly 25 million connections, intended to advance neuroscience research into perception, memory and behavior.