Fruitless
MaleCNS intervention study and Three.js visualization testing how blocking modeled mAL output changes activity in courtship-related candidate neurons.
Neurons are simulated — leaky integrate-and-fire or better — with documented, tuned parameters.
Dispute this rating →The evidence
No evidence, no level.Membrane voltage, synaptic conductance, spike threshold, reset and refractory period are all simulated with stated time constants - a documented LIF neuron model.
https://github.com/nicodunks/fruitless/blob/0943b2c00b47a97c8e22438b11192b33d6779f56/experiment/run.py#L9-L33Connectome weights are only read when a spike is propagated; the only manipulation is the `blocked` mask that suppresses mAL output, so no synaptic weight changes during a run.
https://github.com/nicodunks/fruitless/blob/0943b2c00b47a97c8e22438b11192b33d6779f56/experiment/run.py#L34-L37The authors state their own limits: the result is increased responsiveness to male cues, not male preference, and not a biological replication.
https://github.com/nicodunks/fruitless/blob/0943b2c00b47a97c8e22438b11192b33d6779f56/README.md#L28
A real leaky integrate-and-fire simulation over the 166,606-neuron MaleCNS graph: membrane voltage v relaxes to -52 mV with a 20 ms membrane time constant, synaptic conductance g decays with a 5 ms constant, spikes fire at -45 mV and trigger a reset plus a 2.2 ms refractory period with a 1.8 ms axonal delay. That earns L1. Not L2: no synapse is ever written. The connectome weight array is read-only inside the integrator (`weights[e]` is only ever read to add to a pending current), and the single intervention in the study is a boolean `blocked` mask that suppresses mAL output for the comparison condition - an optogenetic-style silencing manipulation, not a plasticity rule. There is no learning rule, no dopamine term, and no trained readout anywhere in the repository; the README is explicit that the fly's movement in the visualization is 'illustrative choreography' rather than a model output.
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