Interactive browser simulation of the Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) brain. 139,255 neurons and 2.7M connections from the FlyWire FAFB v783 connectome run in real time via a leaky integrate-and-fire model in a Web Worker.
The fly is not scripted. Behavior emerges from signal propagation through weighted neural connections: place food and watch it seek, touch it and watch it startle, change the light and watch it navigate.
Open index.html in a browser (or visit the hosted version). The fly loads the full connectome and begins exploring. Use the toolbar to interact:
- Feed -- click to place food. The fly seeks and eats it when hungry.
- Touch -- click on the fly. Head, thorax, abdomen, and legs trigger different responses.
- Air -- click and drag near the fly to blow wind.
- Light -- cycle through Bright, Dim, Dark. The fly exhibits phototaxis.
- Temp -- cycle through Neutral, Warm, Cool.
The bottom panel shows all 139K neurons firing in real time (WebGL), grouped by region: Sensory, Central, Drives, Motor.
Connectome data from the FlyWire Whole-Brain Connectome:
Dorkenwald, S., Matsliah, A., Sterling, A.R. et al. Neuronal wiring diagram of an adult brain. Nature 634, 124--138 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07558-y
The binary connectome file (data/neuron_meta.bin.gz) is derived from the FlyWire Codex public dataset (FAFB v783). Neurons are classified into functional groups (sensory, central, drives, motor) based on FlyWire cell type annotations.
Forked from heyseth/worm-sim, which simulated the 302-neuron C. elegans connectome in the browser. FlyBrain replaces the worm with a fruit fly and scales from 302 neurons to 139,255.
MIT License -- see license.md for details.
- FlyWire Consortium -- for mapping the complete adult Drosophila brain connectome and making the data publicly available.
- Timothy Busbice, Gabriel Garrett, Geoffrey Churchill and contributors to the GoPiGo Connectome -- original connectome-driven robot concept.
- Zach Rispoli -- porting the C. elegans connectome to JavaScript.
- Seth Miller -- creating worm-sim, the browser simulation this project is forked from.