Descending-neuron atlas
Interactive map of 481 MaleCNS descending-neuron types onto the body parts they excite or inhibit.
Neurons are simulated — leaky integrate-and-fire or better — with documented, tuned parameters.
Dispute this rating →The evidence
No evidence, no level.The repo contains a leaky integrate-and-fire network over the connectome, with its parameter set and synapse strength stated and its calibration explained.
https://github.com/shreyansatvik/fly-brain-to-body-drosophila-descending-neurons/blob/65b598e900d0eace8c2e2bce8a6c21066d6a009e/brain-to-body/simulate.py#L1-L38Membrane voltages are integrated, thresholded, reset and held refractory each 0.25 ms step - the dynamics that earn L1.
https://github.com/shreyansatvik/fly-brain-to-body-drosophila-descending-neurons/blob/65b598e900d0eace8c2e2bce8a6c21066d6a009e/brain-to-body/simulate.py#L83-L91Synapse strength is a single fixed constant for every connection, signed by transmitter, so no weight is ever updated - this is what rules out L2.
https://github.com/shreyansatvik/fly-brain-to-body-drosophila-descending-neurons/blob/65b598e900d0eace8c2e2bce8a6c21066d6a009e/brain-to-body/simulate.py#L32-L33The authors state their own limits: wiring is not activity, the simulation is crude, and actions show recruitment rather than movement.
https://github.com/shreyansatvik/fly-brain-to-body-drosophila-descending-neurons/blob/65b598e900d0eace8c2e2bce8a6c21066d6a009e/README.md#L412-L421
More than reference material: besides the wiring-reach map, the repo ships its own leaky integrate-and-fire simulator over the MaleCNS v1.0 brain + nerve cord, explicitly in the style of Shiu et al. (2024), with a stated parameter set (v_rest -52 mV, v_th -45 mV, tau_mem 20 ms, tau_syn 5 ms, 2.2 ms refractory, 1.8 ms axonal delay), Poisson drive of the selected descending neurons at 75 or 150 spikes/s, and membrane voltages integrated at dt = 0.25 ms. Membrane voltages change under a documented neuron model, so L1. Not L2: no synapse is ever updated - every synapse carries the same fixed W_SYN = 0.08 mV signed by the presynaptic transmitter, hand-calibrated once by the author, and a grep for plasticity, learning, STDP or dopamine-driven weight change across the Python and JavaScript finds nothing. Worth carrying over that the project is unusually candid about this: its own Limitations section says the model has no gap junctions, no neuromodulators, no sensory feedback and starts from rest, and that actions show muscle recruitment rather than movement. Caveat for a reader: the shipped page replays precomputed results from sim.js; the integration itself runs offline in simulate.py at build time.
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All projects →Research code for the Shiu et al. connectome-based leaky integrate-and-fire model, including activation/silencing experiments, notebooks, and FlyWire data configuration.
FlyWire whole-brain LIF implementation based on Shiu et al., with multiple simulation backends and benchmarking tools. This repository supplies the neural model; it is not a complete embodied demo package.
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