Dan Levenstein
@dlevenstein.bsky.social
Neuroscientist, in theory.
Studying sleep and navigation in 🧠s and 💻s.
Wu Tsai Investigator, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at Yale.
An emergent property of a few billion neurons, their interactions with each other and the world over ~1 century.
Studying sleep and navigation in 🧠s and 💻s.
Wu Tsai Investigator, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at Yale.
An emergent property of a few billion neurons, their interactions with each other and the world over ~1 century.
Pinned
Dan Levenstein
@dlevenstein.bsky.social
· Jun 23
Thrilled to announce I'll be starting my own neuro-theory lab, as an Assistant Professor at @yaleneuro.bsky.social @wutsaiyale.bsky.social this Fall!
My group will study offline learning in the sleeping brain: how neural activity self-organizes during sleep and the computations it performs. 🧵
My group will study offline learning in the sleeping brain: how neural activity self-organizes during sleep and the computations it performs. 🧵
Did not have "new Broken Social Scene" on my bingo card for today.
February 3, 2026 at 6:42 PM
Did not have "new Broken Social Scene" on my bingo card for today.
JEPAs all the way down 🐢🐢🐢
We think cortex might function like a JEPA. It looks like prediction errors in layer 2/3 are not computed against input (as is the idea in predictive processing), but against a representation in latent space (i.e. like in a JEPA arxiv.org/abs/2301.08243 or RPL doi.org/10.1101/2025...).
January 31, 2026 at 1:58 PM
JEPAs all the way down 🐢🐢🐢
Turns out your cortex is just a laptop bag bursting at the seams 😂
January 29, 2026 at 3:07 AM
Turns out your cortex is just a laptop bag bursting at the seams 😂
A little late on the 🦋🚂, but happy to share a new(ish) preprint - the culmination of three years of postdoc with @tyrellturing.bsky.social and @apeyrache.bsky.social, and my first real foray into #NeuroAI as a tool to study the sleeping brain 🧠🟦:
biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
(1/🧵) c’est parti!
biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
(1/🧵) c’est parti!
Sequential predictive learning is a unifying theory for hippocampal representation and replay
bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution
biorxiv.org
January 28, 2026 at 2:44 AM
Who is the dentate guru? 🤔🧘♂️🦷
January 27, 2026 at 9:07 PM
Who is the dentate guru? 🤔🧘♂️🦷
More than you would expect from studying AI and less than you would expect from studying neurobiology.
"How much of the brain's learned algorithms depend on the fact it is a brain?" arxiv.org/abs/2601.02063 The brain is a neural network, but also a biological organ (unlike artificial neural networks). How much does this matter to cognition?
January 25, 2026 at 3:17 PM
More than you would expect from studying AI and less than you would expect from studying neurobiology.
Reposted by Dan Levenstein
Wow, inspiring work.
IMO the 'jingle-jangle' fallacy is a majorly underappreciated source of confusion in many fields. In my field (sleep/memory), we have issues of a similar scale re:
-What is a "sleep spindle"?
-Correlations between "sleep stages" and "memory performance"
1/2
#sleeppeeps
IMO the 'jingle-jangle' fallacy is a majorly underappreciated source of confusion in many fields. In my field (sleep/memory), we have issues of a similar scale re:
-What is a "sleep spindle"?
-Correlations between "sleep stages" and "memory performance"
1/2
#sleeppeeps
The Iowa Gambling Task is an extreme example of Jingle Fallacy and schmeasurement.
In 100 articles we found 244 different ways of scoring it, 177 were never reused. Correlations between them range -.99 to .99.
At the same time, we show meta-analyses combine these results as if they’re equivalent.
In 100 articles we found 244 different ways of scoring it, 177 were never reused. Correlations between them range -.99 to .99.
At the same time, we show meta-analyses combine these results as if they’re equivalent.
How many versions of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) exist? And how much does this affect research using the IGT? More than you might think. 🧵
January 25, 2026 at 2:04 PM
Wow, inspiring work.
IMO the 'jingle-jangle' fallacy is a majorly underappreciated source of confusion in many fields. In my field (sleep/memory), we have issues of a similar scale re:
-What is a "sleep spindle"?
-Correlations between "sleep stages" and "memory performance"
1/2
#sleeppeeps
IMO the 'jingle-jangle' fallacy is a majorly underappreciated source of confusion in many fields. In my field (sleep/memory), we have issues of a similar scale re:
-What is a "sleep spindle"?
-Correlations between "sleep stages" and "memory performance"
1/2
#sleeppeeps
@davidtingley.bsky.social obsessed over this issue w.r.t “replay” for like half of our PhD, which turned into a great review with @apeyrache.bsky.social
On the methods for reactivation and replay analysis
Abstract. A major task in the history of neurophysiology has been to relate patterns of neural activity to ongoing external stimuli. More recently, this ap
royalsocietypublishing.org
January 25, 2026 at 2:59 PM
@davidtingley.bsky.social obsessed over this issue w.r.t “replay” for like half of our PhD, which turned into a great review with @apeyrache.bsky.social
Part of the issue, from what I can tell/have heard through the 🍇vine, is that rodents have much less REM than humans, and each REM episode is one long (O(mins)) replay. So there will be only a few in a long recording. While during NREM there will be a SWR/opportunity for replay every few seconds.
January 24, 2026 at 1:25 AM
Part of the issue, from what I can tell/have heard through the 🍇vine, is that rodents have much less REM than humans, and each REM episode is one long (O(mins)) replay. So there will be only a few in a long recording. While during NREM there will be a SWR/opportunity for replay every few seconds.
Reposted by Dan Levenstein
Last term I tried an experiment: I walked into my Tech and Design Ethics class, admitted that I had *no idea* what to do about ChatGPT - so I would let them figure it out.
As in: their first project was to decide and write the ChatGPT policy for the class.
Here's what happened:
As in: their first project was to decide and write the ChatGPT policy for the class.
Here's what happened:
January 22, 2026 at 11:36 PM
Last term I tried an experiment: I walked into my Tech and Design Ethics class, admitted that I had *no idea* what to do about ChatGPT - so I would let them figure it out.
As in: their first project was to decide and write the ChatGPT policy for the class.
Here's what happened:
As in: their first project was to decide and write the ChatGPT policy for the class.
Here's what happened:
How tho?
With most psychedelic drugs, you never know what you're going to get. But this mysterious mushroom from China - without fail - causes users to hallucinate tiny people: crawling up walls, popping out from under furniture and marching under doors. www.bbc.com/future/artic...
'They saw them on their dishes when eating': The mushroom making people hallucinate dozens of tiny humans
Only recently described by science, the mysterious mushrooms are found in different parts of the world, but they give people the same exact visions.
www.bbc.com
January 22, 2026 at 7:02 PM
How tho?
AI customer service responding ever so politely about lying AI images of a product 🥲
I was able to clarify this with the vendor.
January 22, 2026 at 1:02 PM
AI customer service responding ever so politely about lying AI images of a product 🥲
And can be used to help analyze neural data (like neurofoundation models) or estimate parameters for brain-like models (like AI4Neuro) 👍
I.e AI as a tool to for studying the brain
I.e AI as a tool to for studying the brain
January 19, 2026 at 7:48 PM
And can be used to help analyze neural data (like neurofoundation models) or estimate parameters for brain-like models (like AI4Neuro) 👍
I.e AI as a tool to for studying the brain
I.e AI as a tool to for studying the brain
It’s a big tent 😛⛺️
January 18, 2026 at 6:16 PM
It’s a big tent 😛⛺️
Absolutely. I put RL in the neuroAI toolbox.
January 18, 2026 at 5:22 PM
Absolutely. I put RL in the neuroAI toolbox.
This is exactly the kind of approach I’m talking about 👍👍👍
January 18, 2026 at 5:07 PM
This is exactly the kind of approach I’m talking about 👍👍👍
Because (IMO) it’s the only modeling approach ATM that can deal with rich (naturalistic) stimuli and interact with rich environments (for ethologically relevant tasks).
But I also think brain-inspired AI can and should take more inspo from A&P, and these aren’t in conflict or to be tossed.
But I also think brain-inspired AI can and should take more inspo from A&P, and these aren’t in conflict or to be tossed.
January 18, 2026 at 4:46 PM
Because (IMO) it’s the only modeling approach ATM that can deal with rich (naturalistic) stimuli and interact with rich environments (for ethologically relevant tasks).
But I also think brain-inspired AI can and should take more inspo from A&P, and these aren’t in conflict or to be tossed.
But I also think brain-inspired AI can and should take more inspo from A&P, and these aren’t in conflict or to be tossed.
**ethologically 🤦♂️
January 18, 2026 at 4:17 PM
**ethologically 🤦♂️
Not sure it needs to be said (or maybe wild that it does), but I don't think "we" should "acquire" Greenland.
January 18, 2026 at 4:15 PM
Not sure it needs to be said (or maybe wild that it does), but I don't think "we" should "acquire" Greenland.
IMO: NeuroAI approaches + models with rich stimuli/behavior, interactive environments, and ethnologically relevant tasks.
But I'm curious to hear thoughts folks have about this... I'm sure there's a variety of interesting ones
But I'm curious to hear thoughts folks have about this... I'm sure there's a variety of interesting ones
January 18, 2026 at 3:51 PM
IMO: NeuroAI approaches + models with rich stimuli/behavior, interactive environments, and ethnologically relevant tasks.
But I'm curious to hear thoughts folks have about this... I'm sure there's a variety of interesting ones
But I'm curious to hear thoughts folks have about this... I'm sure there's a variety of interesting ones
What's the theory/modeling version of "Naturalistic Neuroscience"?
January 18, 2026 at 3:45 PM
What's the theory/modeling version of "Naturalistic Neuroscience"?
The only rule without exception in biology is that there is an exception for every rule, and I'm not even sure about that one.
🚨 🐜 is there a Bluesky starter pack for researchers who don’t study ants but who get lightheaded every time there’s an awesome ant paper? CC @mariusw.bsky.social @jrichardalbert.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
January 18, 2026 at 3:12 PM
Ironically, the proliferation of mess IS one of the closest things Biology has to a principle from which the fabric of biology emerges…
January 18, 2026 at 3:09 PM
Ironically, the proliferation of mess IS one of the closest things Biology has to a principle from which the fabric of biology emerges…