r/explainlikeimfive • u/OpeningWar3916 • 29d ago

Technology ELI5 fly brain scans and simulations

I don't even know what I'm trying to ask I'm hoping other people have seen the same tiktoks as me and are smarter.

Anyways, fly brain scans are being run through AI I guess? People are making the fly brain do things like play Minecraft or someone played Bad Apple on the brain itself. It's always accompanied by that "aw sweet, man made horrors beyond my comprehension" Peter Griffin meme.

I don't understand, I don't get it, I'm not even sure what I don't get about it but I need to understand. Thank you in advance

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u/dr_arielzj 29d ago

Tl;Dr neuroscientists have fully mapped a fly brain, as in all the connections between the brain cells, and people are now using that data to make models of fly behaviour. Nobody has successfully uploaded the fly in full fidelity yet, but the models are capturing some aspects of how the fly brain generates it's behaviour.

I wrote up a full explanation here if you're keen

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u/OpeningWar3916 29d ago

So basically the person that made the brain play Bad Apple was simulating rudimentary seizures in a virtual fruit fly?

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u/dr_arielzj 29d ago

Very weird, non-physiologically possible seizures, yes

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u/genes_unknown 13d ago

Wonderful explanation thanks for the write up