Fruit Fly Brain Connectome Lets a Brain Play Doom and Mario 64

Researchers from Google and HHMI’s Janelia mapped the fruit fly’s nervous system into a connectome—the largest brain map by neuron count to date (about 166,000 neurons and 125 million synapses)—using serial EM and AI to reconstruct its wiring; the work aims to illuminate how brains perceive stimuli and repair neural pathways. Online developers are already using the data to train simulated fly brains to play Doom and Mario 64, with broader plans to map connectomes in other species.