DesktopWorm 🪱

A native macOS desktop C. elegans driven by the OpenWorm c302 connectome.

Download for macOS · Watch the 41-second demo · OpenWorm c302 · Scientific credits

DesktopWorm uses the complete 302-neuron Caenorhabditis elegans hermaphrodite connectome from OpenWorm c302.

DesktopWorm crawls across the desktop, samples a deliberately slow-moving cursor as a weak chemical attractant, reverses after fast nearby cursor movement, and exposes a live connectome activity window. The model includes:

• all 302 neurons;
• 5,806 neuron-to-neuron edges;
• all 95 body-wall muscles;
• 926 neuron-to-muscle edges;
• chemical synapses and electrical gap junctions;
• sensory, interneuron and motor-neuron activity visualization.

Behavior and rendering

The desktop body is a translucent ivory/amber rendering with a tapered head and tail, subtle pharynx and intestine, and fine cuticle rings. Its articulated 40-point centerline holds a fixed body length. An inertial body chain follows a head-to-tail curvature wave with pulsed traction, lateral head excursion and smooth gait transitions, so translation remains visibly coupled to bending. Every body segment also participates in screen-boundary constraints: trailing segments reflect inward and form a fold along an edge rather than being clipped outside the desktop overlay. The behavior controller favors sustained forward roaming, as observed during off-food exploration, while retaining touch-driven reversal, sensory pauses, exploratory head sweeps, shallow turns, deep turns, slow approaches, dwelling, omega turns, collision recovery and pause. Cursor chemotaxis is staged: the worm samples a target, visibly reorients its body, then approaches the sampled position instead of being continuously dragged by the pointer. A stationary pointer is not repeatedly interpreted as food, and even dwelling retains slow body-wave-driven travel rather than becoming an extended freeze.

Living Connectome

_{All 302 neuron identities and c302-derived connections are shown in a region- and class-derived nervous-system schematic; activity and packet timing are modeled.}

The Living Connectome opens as a compact 520 × 340 floating HUD in the bottom-right of the active display. It shows all 302 neurons inside a whole-worm nervous-system schematic: sensory head-ganglia rosettes around a layered nerve-ring neuropil, longitudinal cords, and the numbered ventral-cord motor classes ordered along the body, plus body sensory cells and a posterior ganglia cluster. Activity-weighted connections, the most active cells, command-interneuron drive, dorsal and ventral muscle activity, and the current autonomous behavior remain live. Resize it larger to reveal the rolling history, transmitters and expanded scientific boundary.

Active chemical connections carry directional packets; electrical gap junctions carry paired packets in both directions. The edges, weights and connection types are c302-derived, while packet timing is explicitly modeled. The modeled sensorimotor loop also feeds head bend back through SMD neurons and whole-body curvature through DVA, reflecting their experimentally supported proprioceptive roles without claiming measured voltages or calcium traces.

c302 does not provide measured per-neuron spatial coordinates in the compact source used here. The display therefore labels this as a region- and class-derived anatomy schematic; it does not claim that dot positions are microscopy coordinates. Colors still identify sensory, interneuron and motor roles, while edges and neuron identities remain c302-derived.

Install

The downloadable app supports Apple Silicon and Intel Macs running macOS 13 or later.

1. Download DesktopWorm-v0.9.4-macOS-universal.zip from the latest release.
2. Unzip it and drag DesktopWorm.app into Applications.
3. On the first launch, Control-click the app, choose Open, then confirm Open.

The current release is Developer ID signed but not yet notarized. macOS may therefore require the Control-click opening step above.

Build from source

Requirements: macOS 13+ and Xcode Command Line Tools.

./script/build_and_run.sh

The Living Connectome is the app's only control window. Use the 🪱 menu-bar item to reopen it, inject touch or food stimuli, choose the crawl speed, hide or show internal anatomy, pause, reset or quit. The menu also links to the GitHub repository for starring and to @apoorvdarshan on X. Movement selection remains autonomous. The app does not request Accessibility, keyboard, camera, microphone or network permissions.

Verify

./script/test.sh
./script/build_and_run.sh --build-only
./script/build_and_run.sh --verify

What is real—and what is modelled

The neuron list, cell roles, neurotransmitter annotations, anatomical edge weights, gap-junction labels, muscle list and neuromuscular edges are derived from OpenWorm c302 data. The graded neural dynamics, uncertain synaptic signs, cursor-to-sensory conversion, locomotor rhythm, body mechanics and rendering are explicit modelling choices.

This is a connectome-constrained interactive visualization, not a faithful digital organism and not a conscious or living animal.

Credits

Created by Apoorv Darshan. The transparent macOS connectome-organism concept was inspired by Denis Shiryaev's DesktopFly. DesktopWorm is a separate C. elegans implementation and does not bundle DesktopFly code, assets, or FlyWire data.

Connectome data and metadata come from the OpenWorm c302 project and the Cook et al. whole-animal connectome reconstruction. Thanks to the OpenWorm contributors and the researchers whose work made this visualization possible.

See CREDITS.md for full acknowledgements and scientific citations, and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md for data provenance and licensing.