Science & sources

The papers, datasets and tools behind the fly.

Datasets

• FlyWire v783 (adult female brain, 139,255 neurons, ~50M synapses). Dorkenwald et al., Neuronal wiring diagram of an adult brain, Nature 2024. Schlegel et al., Whole-brain annotation and multi-connectome cell typing of Drosophila, Nature 2024. Connectivity data: doi:10.5281/zenodo.10676866. Annotations: flyconnectome/flywire_annotations. Explorer: codex.flywire.ai.
• MaleCNS v1.0 (adult male brain + nerve cord, 166,700 neurons, 11,710 cell types). Berg et al., Cell 2026, doi:10.1016/j.cell.2026.08.015. Data: male-cns.janelia.org.

The head-direction circuit

• Seelig & Jayaraman 2015, Neural dynamics for landmark orientation and angular path integration, Nature.
• Kim, Rouault, Druckmann, Jayaraman 2017, Ring attractor dynamics in the Drosophila central brain, Science.
• Turner-Evans et al. 2017, Angular velocity integration in a fly heading circuit, eLife.
• Green et al. 2017, A neural circuit architecture for angular integration in Drosophila, Nature.
• Hulse et al. 2021, A connectome of the Drosophila central complex, eLife.
• Pisokas, Heinze, Webb 2020, The head direction circuit of two insect species, eLife.

Whole-brain simulation

• Shiu et al. 2024, A Drosophila computational brain model reveals sensorimotor processing, Nature. LIF: rest/reset −52 mV, threshold −45 mV, τm 20 ms, τsyn 5 ms, refractory 2.2 ms, delay 1.8 ms, 0.275 mV per synapse. code.
• Lappalainen et al. 2024, Connectome-constrained networks predict neural activity across the fly visual system, Nature (flyvis).
• Wang-Chen et al. 2024, NeuroMechFly v2, Nature Methods.

Circuits on the roadmap

• Escape: von Reyn et al. 2014 (Nat Neurosci), 2017 (Neuron); Ache et al. 2019 (Curr Biol); Dombrovski et al. 2023 (Nature); Phelan et al. 2008 (rectifying gap junctions).
• Steering and descending neurons: Rayshubskiy et al. 2025 (eLife, DNa02); Braun et al. 2024 (Nature, DN–DN networks); Bidaye et al. 2014 (MDN), 2020 (DNp09); Cheong et al. 2024 (MANC DN→MN).
• Learning: Aso et al. 2014 (eLife), Hige et al. 2015 (Neuron), Li et al. 2020 (eLife, hemibrain mushroom body).

Tools used to build the fly

• pandas, pyarrow, numpy for the 852 MB connections table and 9.5 GB synapse table.
• Foundry (forge 1.4) for contracts and the mainnet replay test.
• three.js for the 44,716-point brain; ethers v6 for the chain; Next.js for this site.