🧬 DARK WORM: when you build your own digital worm over the weekend Did you know…

🧬 DARK WORM: when you build your own digital worm over the weekend Did you know that there exists a creature whose 'brain' (connectome) we know down to the last neuron? Caenorhabditis elegans – a millimetre-long nematode – has exactly 302 neurons and more than 7,000 synapses. It is the first organism with a completely mapped connectome. And so I thought… what if I brought it to life in a browser? The result? An interactive neural simulation with a slightly 'Matrix' aesthetic, where you can: 🦠 Feed it bacteria (chemotaxis) 💡 Shine a light on it and observe its escape (phototaxis) 👆 Touch it and watch the nervous system's reaction 🧠 Monitor the activity of all 302 neurons in real-time 💪 95 muscle cells of the body wall 👁️‍🗨️ approximately 60 ciliated sensory neurons Why a worm? Because this is where it all begins. If we want to understand how behaviour emerges from neurons, we must start with the simplest nervous systems. From 302 neurons, the journey leads to 86 billion in the human brain. And honestly… watching it move is unexpectedly hypnotic. ✨ The inspiration and foundations of the simulation come from the OpenWorm project – an open-source effort to create the first fully digital organism. 🔗Inspiration https://lnkd.in/evrfpuUQ #AI #Neuroscience #OpenWorm #Simulation #Celegans #DigitalLife ...more

Originally on LinkedIn — link