You can just take connection and activation weights and write a simple neural network equivalent in an evening. And it would work about as good as a hardware si

You can just take connection and activation weights and write a simple neural network equivalent in an evening. And it would work about as good as a hardware simulation. Isn't this currently an unsettled question? We don't know if simple approximations of easily observable brain features (like connections) works as well for imitating brains as emulating NES instructions works for imitating the NES. Among other obstacles, we haven't had complete connection maps of large, interesting brains to experiment with. It seems like this fruit fly work may be a stepping stone toward more sophisticated "emulation" experiments.