The science inside this toy
All neuron names, brain regions, and circuit motifs in FLYMIND are taken from real published fruit-fly connectome data — the FlyWire female brain, the male CNS connectome (released Sept 2026 by Janelia + Google: blog post here), and decades of Drosophila circuit biology. The full male map has ~166,000 neurons and ~125M synapses; we obviously can't ship that in a browser, so we distilled the science into ~140 key neurons across 8 landmark circuits.
🧪 Olfaction
Odour → ORNs (Or42b etc.) → antennal lobe glomeruli (V) → projection neurons (V_PN) → lateral horn (quick innate) + mushroom body (learnable). Geosmin (Or56a) is hardwired avoidance: microbes on food can be toxic.
👁 Vision
Photoreceptors → lamina → medulla (columnar, Tm neurons) → lobula (T4/T5 detect motion directions) → lobula plate tangential cells (HS/VS) → neck/motor. This is the circuit that won a Nobel for fly vision.
🔊 Hearing
Johnston's organ neurons (JO) → APN1 → wedge (WED) → VNC. Females hear the male's pulse song; males fight over who sings.
⚡ Touch & balance
Chordotonal organs (ch) stretch-receptor → VNC → wing/halt motor neurons. Bristle mechanoreceptors trigger the giant-fibre escape reflex — the fly's 20 ms jump.
🎓 Mushroom body learning
~2000 Kenyon cells receive sparse odour "barcodes". Dopaminergic DANs (PAM = reward, PPL1 = punishment) converge on KC→MBON synapses; reward weakens avoidance MBONs. 3-term rewriteable memory — what you train in the "Train the Fly" tab.
💕 Courtship
P1 (fru⁺) ↔ pCd (dsx⁺) mutual excitation biases courtship; fruᴹ anatomical sites in the male are the classic dimorphism — the very example highlighted in the male-vs-female connectome comparison.
🏃 Escape
Giant fibre (GFN1) → TTMneuron → jump. The fastest known reflex arc; the fly leaps before "seeing" the threat.
🍬 Taste
Gr66a bitter neurons → SOG/SEZ projection → feeding suppression. Sugar via Gr5a excites feeding; bitter wins to protect the fly.
What's real vs. simplified
Real: neuron class names and counts of the actual male/female connectomes, circuit logic (who excites/inhibits whom), behaviour outcomes (geosmin = avoid, vinegar = approach, song = courtship), MB learning rule (DAN-gated plasticity). Simplified: we model ~140 neurons not 166,000; "synapse counts" are scaled down; positions are stylized for readability, not microscopy-accurate.
Inspired by the complete male fruit fly connectome (Google Research × HHMI Janelia), FlyWire, and the male CNS map · companion labs: AFTERWING & FlyGambit · built by @realgauravvyas