Male Fruit Fly Connectome Powers DOOMFLY Simulation
The public release of the male fruit fly connectome has already been put to work in DOOMFLY, a simulation that trains the fly model through dopamine-based negative rewards, though survival time has not improved after roughly 3000 attempts.
Reporting from 1 source: Automaton.
HHMI Janelia Research and Google Research released MaleCNS v1.0, the connectome of a male fruit fly's brain and central nervous system. Coinbase engineer Alex Wormuth is using the dataset to run DOOMFLY, a simulation that converts DOOM screen data into signals for a neural circuit model. Damage to the in-game player sends an artificial aversive stimulus to dopamine cells as a negative reward. After roughly 3000 attempts, no learning effect on survival time has been confirmed.
Released September 3, MaleCNS v1.0 completes the pair with the female connectome already published by the FlyWire consortium: both sexes of Drosophila melanogaster now have mapped brain and central nervous system wiring, viewable through the open-source Neuroglancer tool.
In DOOMFLY, DOOM screen data is converted into signals the fly model can receive, triggering neuron activity mapped to controller inputs. Activity in neuron DNp20 is assigned to turning, while DNpe017 drives forward movement and shooting. Taking damage sends an artificial aversive stimulus to dopamine cells as a negative reward, and death restarts the run.
Wormuth reports roughly 3000 attempts so far with no confirmed learning effect on survival time. Google Research's stated next target is a full fish brain map, which would open the door to a fish playing DOOM.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.