I connected a fruit fly connectome to tic-tac-toe (with a minimax safety net)

Description and use

Using a real fruit fly neural circuit to play tic‑tac‑toe with a minimax safety net.

How to use a real fruit fly neural circuit to play tic‑tac‑toe and evaluate its performance with a minimax safety net.

The fly circuit alone can lose tic‑tac‑toe; with a minimax safety net it can win or draw, demonstrating a hybrid biological‑algorithmic agent.

Select neuron groups that send motor commands and their central brain inputs.
Use connectome data (synapse counts, neurotransmitter predictions) to build a weighted directed graph.
Map each of the 9 tic‑tac‑toe squares to a group of output neurons and each board state to a group of input neurons.
Simulate signal flow through the graph to compute activity levels for each square.
Identify the square with the strongest activity as the fly’s preferred move.
Run minimax to list optimal moves; let the fly pick among them (or play alone if minimax disabled).
Play from the terminal using the provided CLI.
Evaluate outcomes (win, draw, loss).

Scientists have mapped the whole nervous system of a fruit fly: every neuron and every connection, in a public database called a connectome.

Python, neuprint-python, networkx and pandas do the work.

Mostly **minimax**. The fly circuit has no look-ahead, so on its own it walks into forks and forgets to block.

The neurons and the connections between them come straight from the male fly connectome data.

The simulation. It is a simple signal-flow calculation. There are no spikes and no real timing, so it is not how a living neuron behaves.