Real fly and worm brains, running live in your browser.
Every neuron and synapse of a fruit fly brain and a worm has been mapped. Here those wiring diagrams taste sugar, escape shadows, fly through gusts and even play poker, and each result is shown next to rewired brains, so you can see what the real wiring does.
- 14
- experiments in the browser
- 138,639
- neurons in the full fly brain
- 4
- circuits compared on every task
Where do you want to start?
Four ways into the same library of real circuits.
Experiments
14 real circuits driving bodies: reflexes, driving, flight, games and memory tests.
Benchmark
Eight tasks, each run on the real wiring and on rewired, random and silenced circuits.
- Kuhn pokerreal wiring wins
- Pongreal wiring wins
- Odour T-maze with a delayno clear winner
- Two flowersreal wiring wins
- Hold a course in flightreal wiring wins
- Chase a moving targetreal wiring wins
Train
8 tasks. The wiring stays fixed; a small readout learns while you watch.
Real circuit (green) against a rewired one, held out score per generation
Library
6 datasets: the whole FlyWire brain, three circuits cut from it, and the worm.
Running right now
Each clip is rendered from the simulation itself: the real circuit, the real body, frame by frame.
The fly plays poker
Kuhn poker, the smallest real poker, played by 1,846 FlyWire neurons and a trained readout of 21 output neurons.
Fly escapes a looming shadow
The real FlyWire escape pathway: 1,067 neurons between the looming detectors and the Giant Fiber, every measured synapse.
Taste and feed
Sugar makes MN9 fire and the proboscis come out; bitter keeps it in. No training: the reflex is in the wiring.
Hold a course in gusty flight
Gusts knock the flying fly off course. Its motion sensing HS cells and a bar ahead guide a trained steering readout.
A real fly circuit drives a car
1,325 FlyWire neurons, fixed. Collision detectors see the walls, a trained readout of 20 descending neurons turns the wheel.
Worm searches for food
An odour gradient, one OFF sensor and the real wiring: does the worm find the bacteria?
The fly plays Pong
A ball bounces towards the fly. Its collision detectors see which side the ball is on; a trained readout moves the paddle.
Chase a moving target
Follow another fly around an arena, as a courting male does. Two readouts steer and set the walking speed.
How every experiment works
- 1
Senses drive real neurons
A looming disc drives the fly's looming detectors, sugar its taste neurons, a gust its motion sensing HS cells.
- 2
The measured wiring does the rest
Spikes travel through every synapse mapped by electron microscopy to the descending neurons that command the body.
- 3
The same task on control brains
Rewired, random and silenced circuits run the same task. Only a difference from them says the wiring matters.
Who else runs connectomes, and where this lab fits
Eon Systems' embodied fly, flybench, webgpu-fly, OpenWorm, Cortical Labs and more, compared.
Community33 projects by others, credited
Fly Dino, Swat, the Beat Saber fly and more, with their authors and code. Build your own experiment and share it.