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Flylock is a demo built on a whole-brain simulation of the fruit fly. The simulation is based on the FlyWire connectome, a detailed wiring map of the fly’s brain containing roughly 139,000 neurons and 50 million connections. In Flylock, the simulated fly brain is trained to play Overwatch. The creator uses YOLOv5 and video pretraining data to feed visual information into the system, while a keyboard environment lets it control the game and attention-based aiming helps decide where to focus. The fly has found the most success playing Mercy, where the creator says it has reached Masters level. The system still relies on extra computer vision, training and controls around the connectome, so the raw fly brain is not learning Overwatch by itself. The experiment shows how a real biological wiring map can form part of a system that handles a fast 3D game in real time. What are your thoughts on this? 🤔💬
Flylock is a demo built on a whole-brain simulation of the fruit fly. The simulation is based on the FlyWire connectome, a detailed wiring map of the fly’s brain containing roughly 139,000 neurons and 50 million connections. In Flylock, the simulated fly brain is trained to play Overwatch. The creator uses YOLOv5 and video pretraining data to feed visual information into the system, while a keyboard environment lets it control the game and attention-based aiming helps decide where to focus. The fly has found the most success playing Mercy, where the creator says it has reached Masters level. The system still relies on extra computer vision, training and controls around the connectome, so the raw fly brain is not learning Overwatch by itself. The experiment shows how a real biological wiring map can form part of a system that handles a fast 3D game in real time. What are your thoughts on this? 🤔💬
google sliced a fruit fly’s brain into thousands of layers and rebuilt all 166,000 neurons using ai. it’s public and free, so people are now flying that brain inside minecraft and playing videos into its eyes. this one is the male brain, and about 5% of its neurons are wired differently from the female. #neuroscience #brainmapping #ai #fruitfly #minecraft
google sliced a fruit fly’s brain into thousands of layers and rebuilt all 166,000 neurons using ai. it’s public and free, so people are now flying that brain inside minecraft and playing videos into its eyes. this one is the male brain, and about 5% of its neurons are wired differently from the female. #neuroscience #brainmapping #ai #fruitfly #minecraft
A fruit fly brain is taking the wheel — virtually. Following the release of the MaleCNS v1.0 connectome, developers have started connecting the mapped neural circuitry to interactive simulations. The system contains around 166,700 neurons and 125 million synaptic connections, allowing researchers and developers to explore how neural activity can translate into behavior. The viral clip shows a simulated fly brain controlling a virtual vehicle, with outputs such as steering and turn signals represented in the interface. It does not mean a real fly is driving a real car. This is an early computational experiment showing how a detailed biological connectome can be placed inside an interactive environment. Credit: Breg Grockman This is an informative media page. For content removal, corrections, or credits, please DM or email us.
A fruit fly brain is taking the wheel — virtually. Following the release of the MaleCNS v1.0 connectome, developers have started connecting the mapped neural circuitry to interactive simulations. The system contains around 166,700 neurons and 125 million synaptic connections, allowing researchers and developers to explore how neural activity can translate into behavior. The viral clip shows a simulated fly brain controlling a virtual vehicle, with outputs such as steering and turn signals represented in the interface. It does not mean a real fly is driving a real car. This is an early computational experiment showing how a detailed biological connectome can be placed inside an interactive environment. Credit: Breg Grockman This is an informative media page. For content removal, corrections, or credits, please DM or email us.
Google scientists released the first complete map of a male fruit fly’s central nervous system, covering roughly 166,700 neurons and 125 million synapses. The data was made public, and programmers almost immediately started experimenting with it.  One researcher has now built a real-time simulation with 165,122 neurons and 25.5 million connections, then connected it to a virtual fly playing Beat Saber while its neural activity lights up live beside the game. The fly is not learning the game fully from scratch yet. Its motor system has been trained to replay the right movements, while its visual responses are still being trained and reinforcement learning is used to improve how it plays. It comes after the same newly mapped nervous system was already used for Minecraft experiments, Bad Apple!! animations, Doom and Mario 64.  A brain map that took years to build became public, and within days people were already turning it into playable experiments.  Cool, unsettling, or both?  🤔💬 🎥: @_lyraaaa_ Google's research: https://research.google/blog/a-connectomics-milestone-mapping-the-complete-male-fruit-fly-brain/
Google scientists released the first complete map of a male fruit fly’s central nervous system, covering roughly 166,700 neurons and 125 million synapses. The data was made public, and programmers almost immediately started experimenting with it.  One researcher has now built a real-time simulation with 165,122 neurons and 25.5 million connections, then connected it to a virtual fly playing Beat Saber while its neural activity lights up live beside the game. The fly is not learning the game fully from scratch yet. Its motor system has been trained to replay the right movements, while its visual responses are still being trained and reinforcement learning is used to improve how it plays. It comes after the same newly mapped nervous system was already used for Minecraft experiments, Bad Apple!! animations, Doom and Mario 64.  A brain map that took years to build became public, and within days people were already turning it into playable experiments.  Cool, unsettling, or both?  🤔💬 🎥: @_lyraaaa_ Google's research: https://research.google/blog/a-connectomics-milestone-mapping-the-complete-male-fruit-fly-brain/
Scientists have digitally reconstructed a fruit fly’s entire brain—over 125,000 neurons and 50 million synapses—and successfully used this biological model to control a virtual fly’s movement with over 90% accuracy. This breakthrough marks the first time a fully mapped, real brain controls a body in simulation without AI training. The next milestones include scaling to mouse and eventually human brains, paving the way for biologically based AI and brain emulation. #EonSystems #BrainSimulation #NeuroscienceTech #DigitalBrain #BrainEmulation
Scientists have digitally reconstructed a fruit fly’s entire brain—over 125,000 neurons and 50 million synapses—and successfully used this biological model to control a virtual fly’s movement with over 90% accuracy. This breakthrough marks the first time a fully mapped, real brain controls a body in simulation without AI training. The next milestones include scaling to mouse and eventually human brains, paving the way for biologically based AI and brain emulation. #EonSystems #BrainSimulation #NeuroscienceTech #DigitalBrain #BrainEmulation
What part of the crypto cycle is this? 🪰 A Coinbase engineer wired a simulated fly connectome to live crypto prices and handed it $100. Price charts get converted into light that fires the neurons, a fixed readout turns that activity into buy, sell or hold, and profit stimulates 15 dopamine cells to reinforce whatever it just did. The wiring came from Google Research and HHMI Janelia, who published the first complete map of an adult male fruit fly nervous system on September 3, covering roughly 166,000 neurons and 125 million connections. Within a week, developers had it playing Beat Saber, parallel parking a Mini Cooper, and trading BTC, ETH and SOL. The dopamine loop rewarding an insect for a green candle is the same loop your trading app was designed around. One of you is being studied for it. #Crypto #Bitcoin #Coinbase #Neuroscience #AITrading
What part of the crypto cycle is this? 🪰 A Coinbase engineer wired a simulated fly connectome to live crypto prices and handed it $100. Price charts get converted into light that fires the neurons, a fixed readout turns that activity into buy, sell or hold, and profit stimulates 15 dopamine cells to reinforce whatever it just did. The wiring came from Google Research and HHMI Janelia, who published the first complete map of an adult male fruit fly nervous system on September 3, covering roughly 166,000 neurons and 125 million connections. Within a week, developers had it playing Beat Saber, parallel parking a Mini Cooper, and trading BTC, ETH and SOL. The dopamine loop rewarding an insect for a green candle is the same loop your trading app was designed around. One of you is being studied for it. #Crypto #Bitcoin #Coinbase #Neuroscience #AITrading
Stonkfly is an open-source project by Coinbase software engineer Alex Wormuth that connects a full simulation of an adult male fruit fly’s nervous system to live Bitcoin trading on Coinbase. The simulation is built on the MaleCNS v1.0 connectome, a recently published neural map containing 166,700 neurons, over 25 million directed connections, and more than 124 million synaptic contacts. Live BTC-USDC price data from Coinbase is converted into an RGB visual representation and fed into thousands of simulated sensory inputs that mirror the fly’s visual system, and the resulting neural activity determines whether the system buys, sells, or holds. The reinforcement mechanism works like this: if the portfolio gains at least $0.01, 15 PAM11 dopamine neurons are activated. If it loses, two PPL101 aversive neurons fire instead. Those signals can nudge the strength of selected connections over time, giving the system a basic form of feedback. No traditional trading algorithm or language model is involved. Every trade proposal comes purely from the neural activity of the simulated connectome. One day after launch, the fly was up $1 on its starting $100. Wormuth is careful to note that profitable learning has not been demonstrated, and the project documentation points out that rising crypto prices alone can make any buyer look skilled. The experiment is the first known attempt to point a fruit fly connectome at a live financial market, though other developers have previously paired the same MaleCNS model with games like Doom, Minecraft, and Beat Saber.
Stonkfly is an open-source project by Coinbase software engineer Alex Wormuth that connects a full simulation of an adult male fruit fly’s nervous system to live Bitcoin trading on Coinbase. The simulation is built on the MaleCNS v1.0 connectome, a recently published neural map containing 166,700 neurons, over 25 million directed connections, and more than 124 million synaptic contacts. Live BTC-USDC price data from Coinbase is converted into an RGB visual representation and fed into thousands of simulated sensory inputs that mirror the fly’s visual system, and the resulting neural activity determines whether the system buys, sells, or holds. The reinforcement mechanism works like this: if the portfolio gains at least $0.01, 15 PAM11 dopamine neurons are activated. If it loses, two PPL101 aversive neurons fire instead. Those signals can nudge the strength of selected connections over time, giving the system a basic form of feedback. No traditional trading algorithm or language model is involved. Every trade proposal comes purely from the neural activity of the simulated connectome. One day after launch, the fly was up $1 on its starting $100. Wormuth is careful to note that profitable learning has not been demonstrated, and the project documentation points out that rising crypto prices alone can make any buyer look skilled. The experiment is the first known attempt to point a fruit fly connectome at a live financial market, though other developers have previously paired the same MaleCNS model with games like Doom, Minecraft, and Beat Saber.
🪰 Researchers at Eon Systems have created a virtual fruit fly controlled by a simulated brain modeled on the actual Drosophila connectome, a map of roughly 140,000 neurons and 50 million synaptic connections. The digital fly can taste, navigate toward food, groom itself when coated in virtual dust, and respond to visual stimuli. Its brain model drives a physically accurate 3D body simulated with real joint mechanics and contact forces. The team emphasizes this is an integration of existing published research rather than entirely new science, and significant limitations remain: the neuron models are simplified, internal states like hunger are largely absent, and only a handful of behaviors have been implemented. Still, researchers call it a promising platform for studying how brain structure gives rise to behavior. Relevant article/studies for more info: “The First Multi-Behavior Brain Upload “ published by Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross (alexwg on X) DOI: 10.1038/s41592-024-02497-y DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09029-4 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07763-9
🪰 Researchers at Eon Systems have created a virtual fruit fly controlled by a simulated brain modeled on the actual Drosophila connectome, a map of roughly 140,000 neurons and 50 million synaptic connections. The digital fly can taste, navigate toward food, groom itself when coated in virtual dust, and respond to visual stimuli. Its brain model drives a physically accurate 3D body simulated with real joint mechanics and contact forces. The team emphasizes this is an integration of existing published research rather than entirely new science, and significant limitations remain: the neuron models are simplified, internal states like hunger are largely absent, and only a handful of behaviors have been implemented. Still, researchers call it a promising platform for studying how brain structure gives rise to behavior. Relevant article/studies for more info: “The First Multi-Behavior Brain Upload “ published by Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross (alexwg on X) DOI: 10.1038/s41592-024-02497-y DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09029-4 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07763-9
Scientists mapped a fruit fly’s brain and people are already making it play games. Google researchers released the first complete map of a male fruit fly’s central nervous system, covering around 166,700 neurons and 125 million synapses. Within days, researchers connected the map to a real-time neural simulation and a virtual fly playing Beat Saber, with its neural activity visualized live alongside the game. The system isn’t learning everything from scratch yet, but reinforcement learning is already being used to improve its gameplay. And this is just the beginning the same brain map has already inspired experiments involving Minecraft, Doom, Mario 64 and Bad Apple!! A brain map that took years to build is now becoming a playground for AI and neuroscience. 🎥: _lyraaaa_ on X
Scientists mapped a fruit fly’s brain and people are already making it play games. Google researchers released the first complete map of a male fruit fly’s central nervous system, covering around 166,700 neurons and 125 million synapses. Within days, researchers connected the map to a real-time neural simulation and a virtual fly playing Beat Saber, with its neural activity visualized live alongside the game. The system isn’t learning everything from scratch yet, but reinforcement learning is already being used to improve its gameplay. And this is just the beginning the same brain map has already inspired experiments involving Minecraft, Doom, Mario 64 and Bad Apple!! A brain map that took years to build is now becoming a playground for AI and neuroscience. 🎥: _lyraaaa_ on X
This is a creative demo that combines real neuroscience concepts with a playful setup: a tethered fruit fly wired to a recording system, with live readouts of PAM dopamine neuron activity measured in Hz and spike counts in 90-millisecond windows. The PAM neurons, or protocerebral anterior medial dopaminergic neurons, are a well-studied cluster in the Drosophila brain linked to reward, motivation, and associative learning. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has roughly 127 dopaminergic neurons total, making it a popular model organism for neuroscience research precisely because its circuits are small and well-mapped. Recording neural activity from a tethered fly while presenting visual stimuli is a real technique used in labs studying how dopamine shapes behavior and perception in insects. Researchers use electrophysiology and genetic tools to track when and how fast these neurons fire, often exposing the fly to controlled visual or olfactory inputs and measuring the response in real time. What makes this setup stand out is the augmented reality display paired alongside the neural data, showing shifting visual perspectives meant to simulate what the fly might be experiencing while its PAM neurons fire. The humor is intentional, but the underlying hardware, firing rate measurements, and neuron types referenced are grounded in legitimate Drosophila neuroscience.
This is a creative demo that combines real neuroscience concepts with a playful setup: a tethered fruit fly wired to a recording system, with live readouts of PAM dopamine neuron activity measured in Hz and spike counts in 90-millisecond windows. The PAM neurons, or protocerebral anterior medial dopaminergic neurons, are a well-studied cluster in the Drosophila brain linked to reward, motivation, and associative learning. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has roughly 127 dopaminergic neurons total, making it a popular model organism for neuroscience research precisely because its circuits are small and well-mapped. Recording neural activity from a tethered fly while presenting visual stimuli is a real technique used in labs studying how dopamine shapes behavior and perception in insects. Researchers use electrophysiology and genetic tools to track when and how fast these neurons fire, often exposing the fly to controlled visual or olfactory inputs and measuring the response in real time. What makes this setup stand out is the augmented reality display paired alongside the neural data, showing shifting visual perspectives meant to simulate what the fly might be experiencing while its PAM neurons fire. The humor is intentional, but the underlying hardware, firing rate measurements, and neuron types referenced are grounded in legitimate Drosophila neuroscience.
Google mapped an entire fruit fly’s brain, and people keep asking me whether or not it’s conscious. My answer: probably not. Why? Because a map of a system is not the system itself. While it’s cool to see there’s functional information within the fruit fly’s brain, such as how it moves when you stimulate different regions, that doesn’t mean there’s a subjective experience behind the fruit fly. Consciousness is very complex, and mapping a brain may not be the equivalent of having a conscious experience. In this video, we explore different theories of consciousness as it relates to the fruit fly, such as functionalism, biological naturalism, and integrated information theory. However, one big question remains: if we did a human brain one day, and it claimed to be conscious and begged to not be shut off, how would we know? Let me know what you think in the comments. Mapping a fruit fly’s brain is a very scary thing. —— #wisdom #philosophy #deepthoughts #philosopher #culture
Google mapped an entire fruit fly’s brain, and people keep asking me whether or not it’s conscious. My answer: probably not. Why? Because a map of a system is not the system itself. While it’s cool to see there’s functional information within the fruit fly’s brain, such as how it moves when you stimulate different regions, that doesn’t mean there’s a subjective experience behind the fruit fly. Consciousness is very complex, and mapping a brain may not be the equivalent of having a conscious experience. In this video, we explore different theories of consciousness as it relates to the fruit fly, such as functionalism, biological naturalism, and integrated information theory. However, one big question remains: if we did a human brain one day, and it claimed to be conscious and begged to not be shut off, how would we know? Let me know what you think in the comments. Mapping a fruit fly’s brain is a very scary thing. —— #wisdom #philosophy #deepthoughts #philosopher #culture
This fruit fly brain map could have wild implications for humanity and all of nature. What do you think? . #science #brains #freewill #brainmap #neuroscience #fruitflybrain #kylehill #video #sciencenews
This fruit fly brain map could have wild implications for humanity and all of nature. What do you think? . #science #brains #freewill #brainmap #neuroscience #fruitflybrain #kylehill #video #sciencenews
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