The brain, perhaps the most important organ in our body, is a complex organ that controls and makes possible your every move, from breathing to reading this article right now. Scientists investigating the incredible abilities of this organ have been doing hundreds of different studies on human and animal brains for many years.
A group of scientists who have been researching the brain structures of fruit flies for over 12 years have finally succeeded in mapping the brains of these tiny creatures. The interesting thing is that the brain structures of fruit flies are very similar to the network structure of neural artificial intelligence systems used today.
The brain structure of flies does not change from birth to death.
According to the paper published in The Science, researchers studied the brain structures of thousands of larval and adult fruit flies over the 12-year research period. The researchers, who examined and mapped the various neurons and synapses of the animals in detail, stated that the brains and synapses of the flies were formed during their larval stages and did not change until they died. Scientists examining the fruit fly species “Drosophila melanogaster” state that, contrary to what many people think, the fly can recognize every object and person it has seen throughout its life, learn and have the ability to make decisions.
A major breakthrough for experts in neuroscience, this research could play a major role in learning how insects and other animals have evolved over the centuries and in controlling their behavior. In addition, this research could radically change the work in the field of artificial intelligence.
The fly brain is almost identical to the artificial intelligence neural network
Neural AI networks are artificial intelligence systems that are specially designed to “behave” like a real brain by simulating the brain structure. In this research on flies, it is revealed that the working principles and structures of neural artificial intelligences are almost the same as the brains of flies. Of course, this situation leads to some conspiracy theories about flies, but in fact, this similarity signals that we will be able to unravel all the secrets of the brain in the near future.
Likewise, thanks to this map, neural artificial intelligence experts can safely experiment on this structure by reconstructing the brain structure of many living things, especially fruit flies, in computer environment, and reveal the secrets of the brain of animals first and then of the human brain.
By learning “what is where” in the brain structures of animals, this map may be the key to our learning about the behavior of animals, their way of thinking, their motivation and (like in bees) how the hive mind works.