Description
A wiring diagram tells us which neurons connect. How much does it tell us about what they compute? This book follows an attempt to recover candidate computations from the fruit fly's connectome, explore the assumptions needed to make them run, and find experiments that distinguish the resulting explanations.
Three circuits carry the investigation: a compass that holds direction, a pathway that shifts spatial signals, and a mushroom-body network whose expected gain control fails in the tested model. A whole-brain simulation in a physical body then puts the approach under pressure. Along the way, the book separates established biology, recorded model results, and predictions still waiting for a test.