Google Maps Full Fruit Fly Brain With 166,000 Neurons in Landmark Connectome

Google Research, in collaboration with HHMI Janelia Research Campus and other partners, has published the most detailed brain wiring map to date, charting roughly 166,000 neurons and 125 million synapses across the adult male fruit fly's brain and central nervous system. The findings were published alongside work by Januszewski, Jain, and collaborators in the journal Cell. The connectome is intended as a scientific resource to help researchers study how neural circuits process sensory information and drive behavior, not as a commercial AI product. Separately, an independent experimental project called DOOMFLY has used connectome data in a pipeline that translates simulated fly-brain activity into controls for the game Doom, though the project is self-described as exploratory and non-validated. The core achievement remains the connectome itself, which researchers hope will also inform future neuromorphic hardware design and advance mapping techniques for more complex species.