Fruit Fly Brain Map Powers Bizarre Virtual Adventures

A team of researchers from Google Research and HHMI's Janelia Research Campus have mapped the nervous system of a male fruit fly, creating a detailed wiring diagram that includes more than 166,000 neurons across nearly 11,700 distinct types.

The map, known as a connectome, was built by imaging wafer-thin slices of the fly's brain and using AI models to stitch millions of 2D images into a single 3D reconstruction. The team also used this approach to help classify the neurons in the fly's brain.

The internet quickly got hold of the connectome, with one Georgia Tech grad student creating a Minecraft version that allowed the fly's neurons to steer an in-game character around. This was followed by other users who found creative ways for the fly to interact with its virtual environment, including playing Doom and Beat Saber, parallel parking a car, trading Bitcoin, cutting döner kebab, and writing LinkedIn posts.

While some people have raised concerns about putting a simulation this accurate through unusual situations, Google Research notes that there's no biochemistry involved in the connectome. It's simply a wiring diagram running in software, capturing the structure of a fly's nervous system without any actual living tissue being affected.