science

Shiu put his in silico fly brain to the test by simulating the activation of neurons that sense sugar or water. The model predicted that specific neurons would fire to extend the fly’s proboscis and initiate eating — a result he and his colleagues showed is true in real adult flies. When simulating activation of sensory neurons from the fly’s antennae, the model predicted the firing of neurons in the circuit involving grooming with the legs, exactly the behavior a fly exhibits when it gets dirt on its antennae.

That is impressive.

How does this deal with learning?

Getting a sense of the scale:

139,255 neurons and 50 million connections [...] 10 year effort [...] It was assembled from 7,000 thin slices through a female adult fly’s brain, imaged with electron microscopy and annotated by AI to identify neuron types and connections.

Compared to house mouse at 71M and human at 8.6×10^10.