Google mapped a fly's nervous system and developers are using it to play Doom
SMRTR summary
A fruit fly's brain is now playing video games. Google recently published a landmark dataset mapping the entire brain and central nervous system of an adult male fruit fly, more than 166,000 neurons rendered in three dimensions. The scientific community celebrated it as a breakthrough for neuroscience research.
Developers had other ideas.
Software engineer Alex Wormuth connected the fly's neural map to Doom, the classic first-person shooter. Game frames stimulate sensory neurons, and the resulting activity translates into controls. "Each Doom frame stimulates sensory neurons. Neural activity is mapped to game controls. Damage triggers a stimulus to two PPL101 dopamine cells as reinforcement," Wormuth explained.
Developer Jessica Paquette ran a similar experiment with Super Mario 64, describing the project as "literally 100% vibe coded with GPT Astra... just for fun." Early footage shows Mario repeatedly flying into a wall.
Neither experiment involves a real fly. But both reveal something telling: when scientists release a major biological dataset, developers will find something to do with it almost immediately.
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to TechSpot.
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