References and prior work
Prior work this builds on
| Work | What it shows | Gap CAKE addresses |
|---|---|---|
| Randi et al. 2023 (Nature): C. elegans signal propagation atlas | Anatomy alone mispredicts causal signaling; extrasynaptic peptides matter | Mechanistic model of why (L4/L5, H3) |
| Lappalainen et al. 2024 (Nature): connectome-constrained fly visual system | Connectome + task optimization predicts responses of single neurons | Point neurons, task objective; no biophysics, slow regulation or body |
| Shiu et al. 2024 (Nature): whole fly brain LIF model | Connectome alone predicts some sensorimotor pathways | Uniform neuron parameters; no graded potentials, peptides or gap junctions |
| BAAIWorm / MetaWorm (Zhao et al. 2024, Nat Comput Sci) | Closed-loop multicompartment worm brain + body | Hand-set parameters; no principled θ inference or perturbation generalization |
| Data-driven biophysical network model of C. elegans premotor dynamics (arXiv 2501.00278, 2025) | Connectome + voltage clamp + whole-brain imaging fit a premotor circuit model reproducing forward/reversal switching | Small circuit, parameters fitted directly; a baseline and a source of priors for Track A |
| Modular integration of connectomics, dynamics and biomechanics in C. elegans (arXiv 2504.18073, 2025) | Modular brain–body pipeline for identifying sensorimotor pathways | Architecture reference for the component/coupler design |
| Beiran & Litwin-Kumar 2024 | Connectome underdetermines dynamics; small recorded subsets fix it | Applied in CAKE to experiment design and identifiability |
| Jaxley (Deistler et al. 2025, Nat Methods) | Gradient training of detailed biophysical networks at 10⁵ parameters | Engine basis for L1–L3 inference |
| FlyGM (arXiv 2602.17997, 2026) | Whole-brain connectome graph as a body controller trained with RL | Not biophysical; weights learned, not anchored |
| Connectome-constrained spontaneous-activity model (bioRxiv, Aug 2026) | Whole-brain fly model fitted to calcium recordings of spontaneous activity | Benchmark target for E3 |
| O'Leary, Marder et al. (2013–2014) | Homeostatic rules produce correlated conductances and cell-type identity | Scaled up to whole-connectome inference (H*) |
| State of Brain Emulation Report 2025 | Field lacks evaluation standards and a "which details matter" answer | Emulation Ladder + Necessity Map |
Bibliography
- Randi, F., Sharma, A. K., Dvali, S., Leifer, A. M. (2023). Neural signal propagation atlas of Caenorhabditis elegans. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06683-4
- Lappalainen, J. K. et al. (2024). Connectome-constrained networks predict neural activity across the fly visual system. Nature. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.11.532232
- Shiu, P. K. et al. (2024). A Drosophila computational brain model reveals sensorimotor processing. Nature.
- Dorkenwald, S. et al. (2024). Neuronal wiring diagram of an adult brain. Nature. https://flywire.ai/
- FlyWire / Harvard (2025). The BANC: Brain and Nerve Cord. https://blog.flywire.ai/2025/11/03/the-banc-brain-and-nerve-cord/
- Google Research / HHMI Janelia et al. (2026). Complete male fruit fly CNS connectome. https://research.google/blog/a-connectomics-milestone-mapping-the-complete-male-fruit-fly-brain/
- Zhao, M. et al. (2024). An integrative data-driven model simulating C. elegans brain, body and environment interactions. Nat. Comput. Sci. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43588-024-00738-w
- Deistler, M. et al. (2025). Jaxley: differentiable simulation enables large-scale training of detailed biophysical models of neural dynamics. Nat. Methods. https://jaxley.readthedocs.io/
- Beiran, M., Litwin-Kumar, A. (2024). Prediction of neural activity in connectome-constrained recurrent networks. bioRxiv. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.22.581667
- Whole-Brain Connectomic Graph Model Enables Whole-Body Locomotion Control in Fruit Fly (2026). https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.17997
- Connectome-constrained modeling identifies neurons and synapses that sustain spontaneous activity in Drosophila (2026). bioRxiv. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.21.745055v1.full
- State of Brain Emulation Report 2025. https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.15745
- Pugliese et al. (2025). Connectome simulations identify a central pattern generator… https://faculty.washington.edu/tuthill/docs/Pugliese_cpg_2025.pdf
- Correlative light and electron microscopy in larval zebrafish (2025). https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.14.643363v2
- O'Leary, T., Williams, A. H., Caplan, J. S., Marder, E. (2013). Correlations in ion channel expression emerge from homeostatic tuning rules. PNAS.
- O'Leary, T., Williams, A. H., Franci, A., Marder, E. (2014). Cell types, network homeostasis, and pathological compensation from a biologically plausible ion channel expression model. Neuron.
- Liu, Z., Golowasch, J., Marder, E., Abbott, L. F. (1998). A model neuron with activity-dependent conductances regulated by multiple calcium sensors. J. Neurosci.
- Prinz, A. A., Bucher, D., Marder, E. (2004). Similar network activity from disparate circuit parameters. Nat. Neurosci.
- Marder, E., Goaillard, J.-M. (2006). Variability, compensation and homeostasis in neuron and network function. Nat. Rev. Neurosci.
- Gutenkunst, R. N. et al. (2007). Universally sloppy parameter sensitivities in systems biology models. PLoS Comput. Biol.
- Cook, S. J. et al. (2019). Whole-animal connectomes of both C. elegans sexes. Nature.
- Witvliet, D. et al. (2021). Connectomes across development reveal principles of brain maturation. Nature.
- Taylor, S. R. et al. (2021). Molecular topography of an entire nervous system (CeNGEN). Cell.
- CeNGEN web application documentation (thresholding and false negatives). https://www.cengen.org/webapp-documentation/
- Ripoll-Sánchez, L. et al. (2023). The neuropeptidergic connectome of C. elegans. Neuron.
- Beets, I. et al. (2023). System-wide mapping of peptide–GPCR interactions in C. elegans. Cell Rep.
- Eckstein, N. et al. (2024). Neurotransmitter classification from electron microscopy images at synaptic sites in Drosophila melanogaster. Cell.
- Atanas, A. A. et al. (2023). Brain-wide representations of behavior spanning multiple timescales and states in C. elegans. Cell.
- Kato, S. et al. (2015). Global brain dynamics embed the motor command sequence of C. elegans. Cell.
- Electrical synapses absent from Drosophila EM datasets; innexin mapping (2025). https://www.eneuro.org/content/12/10/ENEURO.0202-25.2025
- Hedgecock, E. M., Russell, R. L. (1975). Normal and mutant thermotaxis in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. PNAS.
- Kimura, K. D., Miyawaki, A., Matsumoto, K., Mori, I. (2004). The C. elegans thermosensory neuron AFD responds to warming. Curr. Biol.
- Wang, E. Y. et al. (2025). Foundation model of neural activity predicts response to new stimulus types. Nature.
- Persistent adaptation through dual-timescale regulation of ion channel properties (2026). PNAS. https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2530340123
- Activity-dependent neuromodulation and calcium homeostasis cooperate to produce robust and modulable neuronal function (2026). PLoS Comput. Biol. https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1014177
- A data-driven biophysical network model reproduces C. elegans premotor neural dynamics (2025). https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.00278
- Modular integration of neural connectomics, dynamics and biomechanics for identification of behavioral sensorimotor pathways in Caenorhabditis elegans (2025). https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.18073
- Winding, M. et al. (2023). The connectome of an insect brain. Science.
- Sussmann, H. J. (1973). Orbits of families of vector fields and integrability of distributions. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. (Orbit theorem; with the Frobenius theorem, the basis for equilibrium selection under state-dependent regulatory gains, L7.)
- Kelley, C. T., Keyes, D. E. (1998). Convergence analysis of pseudo-transient continuation. SIAM J. Numer. Anal.
- Becker, R., Rannacher, R. (2001). An optimal control approach to a posteriori error estimation in finite element methods. Acta Numerica. (Dual-weighted residual error estimation.)
- Candès, E. J., Li, X., Ma, Y., Wright, J. (2011). Robust principal component analysis? J. ACM. (Incoherence conditions for structured matrix decomposition, H3.)
- Schuirmann, D. J. (1987). A comparison of the two one-sided tests procedure and the power approach for assessing the equivalence of average bioavailability. J. Pharmacokinet. Biopharm. (Equivalence testing.)
- Kemeny, J. G., Snell, J. L. (1960). Finite Markov Chains. Van Nostrand. (Fundamental matrix and sensitivity of stationary distributions.)
- Hairer, E., Wanner, G. (1996). Solving Ordinary Differential Equations II: Stiff and Differential-Algebraic Problems. Springer. (Linearly implicit methods for transient mode.)
Prediction, history and methodological parallels
Used with explicit limits in 11-prediction-and-history.md; none is evidence for H* or for a universal limit on neural prediction.
- Lorenz, E. N. (1963). Deterministic nonperiodic flow. J. Atmos. Sci. 20, 130–141. Original article.
- ECMWF. Data assimilation, quantifying forecast uncertainty, and modelling and prediction. Institutional descriptions of state estimation, ensembles and continued improvements to observations and models.
- Wilson, K. G. (1983). The renormalization group and critical phenomena. Rev. Mod. Phys. 55, 583–600. Article; based on the Nobel lecture of 8 December 1982.
- Frank, S. A. (2012). Natural selection. IV. The Price equation. J. Evol. Biol. Article. Distinguishes an identity from a dynamically sufficient evolutionary model.
- Gershman, S. J., Niv, Y. (2010). Learning latent structure: carving nature at its joints. Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 20, 251–256. Authors' manuscript.
- Sanders, H., Wilson, M. A., Gershman, S. J. (2020). Hippocampal remapping as hidden state inference. eLife 9:e51140. Article. Computational account of remapping, not proof of its neural implementation.
- Intensional Kleene and Rice Theorems for Abstract Program Semantics (2021). Research paper. Used for the scope of undecidability results; these do not supply runtime lower bounds for CAKE's particular forecasts.
- Kolmogorov, A. N. (1941). The local structure of turbulence in incompressible viscous fluid for very large Reynolds numbers. English translation reprinted in Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 434, 9–13 (1991). Translation.
- Clay Mathematics Institute. Navier–Stokes equation problem. The existence and smoothness problem is distinct from the range of statistical and modeling problems in turbulence.
- Gneiting, T., Raftery, A. E. (2007). Strictly proper scoring rules, prediction, and estimation. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 102, 359–378. Authors' copy. Proper scores for probabilistic forecasts, including CRPS and the energy score.
Information budget
Used in 12-information-budget.md.
- Cover, T. M., Thomas, J. A. (2006). Elements of Information Theory, 2nd ed. Wiley. (KL divergence, Pinsker's inequality, Stein's lemma, the data-processing inequality, Gaussian channel capacity, reverse water-filling.)
- Neyman, J. (1934). On the two different aspects of the representative method: the method of stratified sampling and the method of purposive selection. J. R. Stat. Soc. 97, 558–625. (Optimal allocation across strata.)
- Byrd, R. H., Chin, G. M., Nocedal, J., Wu, Y. (2012). Sample size selection in optimization methods for machine learning. Math. Program. 134, 127–155. (Dynamic sample sizes as the iterate converges.)
- Tishby, N., Pereira, F. C., Bialek, W. (1999). The information bottleneck method. Proc. 37th Allerton Conference. https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0004057
- Still, S. (2014). Information bottleneck approach to predictive inference. Entropy 16, 968–989.
- Shalizi, C. R., Crutchfield, J. P. (2001). Computational mechanics: pattern and prediction, structure and simplicity. J. Stat. Phys. 104, 817–879. (Causal states as the minimal sufficient statistic of the past.)
- Mardt, A., Pasquali, L., Wu, H., Noé, F. (2018). VAMPnets for deep learning of molecular kinetics. Nat. Commun. 9, 5.
- Nair, G. N., Evans, R. J. (2004). Stabilizability of stochastic linear systems with finite feedback data rates. SIAM J. Control Optim. 43, 413–436.
- Matveev, A. S., Pogromsky, A. Y. (2016). Observation of nonlinear systems via finite capacity channels: constructive data rate limits. Automatica 70, 217–229. (Restoration entropy.)
- Ruelle, D. (1978). An inequality for the entropy of differentiable maps. Bol. Soc. Bras. Mat. 9, 83–87; Pesin, Ya. B. (1977). Characteristic Lyapunov exponents and smooth ergodic theory. Russ. Math. Surv. 32, 55–114. (Entropy and positive Lyapunov exponents.)
- Shannon, C. E. (1949). Communication in the presence of noise. Proc. IRE 37, 10–21. (Sampling theorem; capacity of bandlimited Gaussian channels.)