Patrick Mineault
@patrickmineault.bsky.social
NeuroAI, vision, open science. NeuroAI researcher at Amaranth Foundation. Previously engineer @ Google, Meta, Mila. Updates from http://neuroai.science
We're almost at the end of the year, and that means an end-of-year review! Send me your favorite NeuroAI papers of the year (preprints or published, late last year is fine too).
November 19, 2025 at 4:14 PM
We're almost at the end of the year, and that means an end-of-year review! Send me your favorite NeuroAI papers of the year (preprints or published, late last year is fine too).
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
New #NeuroAI #compneurosky preprint! To better understand how target-directed learning works in the brain, we sought to engineer an artificial neural network capable of solving complex image classification tasks that comprises only experimentally-supported biological building blocks. (1/15)
May 27, 2025 at 6:40 PM
New #NeuroAI #compneurosky preprint! To better understand how target-directed learning works in the brain, we sought to engineer an artificial neural network capable of solving complex image classification tasks that comprises only experimentally-supported biological building blocks. (1/15)
I had way too much fun making these diagrams. Sure, it's not as legible as if I had typed out the text; but I feel like these have a bit more personality
November 6, 2025 at 11:02 PM
I had way too much fun making these diagrams. Sure, it's not as legible as if I had typed out the text; but I feel like these have a bit more personality
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
🚨 New preprint alert!
🧠🤖
We propose a theory of how learning curriculum affects generalization through neural population dimensionality. Learning curriculum is a determining factor of neural dimensionality - where you start from determines where you end up.
🧠📈
A 🧵:
tinyurl.com/yr8tawj3
🧠🤖
We propose a theory of how learning curriculum affects generalization through neural population dimensionality. Learning curriculum is a determining factor of neural dimensionality - where you start from determines where you end up.
🧠📈
A 🧵:
tinyurl.com/yr8tawj3
The curriculum effect in visual learning: the role of readout dimensionality
Generalization of visual perceptual learning (VPL) to unseen conditions varies across tasks. Previous work suggests that training curriculum may be integral to generalization, yet a theoretical explan...
tinyurl.com
September 30, 2025 at 2:26 PM
🚨 New preprint alert!
🧠🤖
We propose a theory of how learning curriculum affects generalization through neural population dimensionality. Learning curriculum is a determining factor of neural dimensionality - where you start from determines where you end up.
🧠📈
A 🧵:
tinyurl.com/yr8tawj3
🧠🤖
We propose a theory of how learning curriculum affects generalization through neural population dimensionality. Learning curriculum is a determining factor of neural dimensionality - where you start from determines where you end up.
🧠📈
A 🧵:
tinyurl.com/yr8tawj3
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
Thrilled to share that our work is now published in Science! ✨
We found a preference for visual objects in the mouse spatial navigation system where they dynamically refine head-direction coding. In short, objects boost our inner compass! 🧭
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
🧵1/
We found a preference for visual objects in the mouse spatial navigation system where they dynamically refine head-direction coding. In short, objects boost our inner compass! 🧭
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
🧵1/
September 11, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Thrilled to share that our work is now published in Science! ✨
We found a preference for visual objects in the mouse spatial navigation system where they dynamically refine head-direction coding. In short, objects boost our inner compass! 🧭
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
🧵1/
We found a preference for visual objects in the mouse spatial navigation system where they dynamically refine head-direction coding. In short, objects boost our inner compass! 🧭
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
🧵1/
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
Having fun facilitating this amazing group of young Profs at the #Neuro4Pros workshop with @kordinglab.bsky.social and @meganakpeters.bsky.social, @yaelniv.bsky.social, and Hannah Bayer.
Watch out world: this is the next generation of leaders!
compneurosci.com/Neuro4Pros/i...
Watch out world: this is the next generation of leaders!
compneurosci.com/Neuro4Pros/i...
August 26, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Having fun facilitating this amazing group of young Profs at the #Neuro4Pros workshop with @kordinglab.bsky.social and @meganakpeters.bsky.social, @yaelniv.bsky.social, and Hannah Bayer.
Watch out world: this is the next generation of leaders!
compneurosci.com/Neuro4Pros/i...
Watch out world: this is the next generation of leaders!
compneurosci.com/Neuro4Pros/i...
"Everyone agrees that emergence is important, but they don’t agree on what the word should mean" arxiv.org/abs/2410.15468
What Emergence Can Possibly Mean
We consider emergence from the perspective of dynamics: states of a system evolving with time. We focus on the role of a decomposition of wholes into parts, and attempt to characterize relationships b...
arxiv.org
August 20, 2025 at 5:33 PM
"Everyone agrees that emergence is important, but they don’t agree on what the word should mean" arxiv.org/abs/2410.15468
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
𝗖𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻
by Earl K Miller, Scott L Brincat, Jefferson E Roy
This promises to be a must read
One day we should create an online journal club to just read these kinds of papers!
#neuroskyence
doi.org/10.1016/j.co...
by Earl K Miller, Scott L Brincat, Jefferson E Roy
This promises to be a must read
One day we should create an online journal club to just read these kinds of papers!
#neuroskyence
doi.org/10.1016/j.co...
August 16, 2025 at 3:05 PM
𝗖𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻
by Earl K Miller, Scott L Brincat, Jefferson E Roy
This promises to be a must read
One day we should create an online journal club to just read these kinds of papers!
#neuroskyence
doi.org/10.1016/j.co...
by Earl K Miller, Scott L Brincat, Jefferson E Roy
This promises to be a must read
One day we should create an online journal club to just read these kinds of papers!
#neuroskyence
doi.org/10.1016/j.co...
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
A few years ago, with @tyrellturing.bsky.social @patrickmineault.bsky.social and others, we showed one single objective (prediction) was sufficient for explaining specialized pathways of mouse visual cortex: tinyurl.com/2vsjbve7
Super cool to see the same observation now for human visual cortex.
Super cool to see the same observation now for human visual cortex.
July 31, 2025 at 1:13 PM
A few years ago, with @tyrellturing.bsky.social @patrickmineault.bsky.social and others, we showed one single objective (prediction) was sufficient for explaining specialized pathways of mouse visual cortex: tinyurl.com/2vsjbve7
Super cool to see the same observation now for human visual cortex.
Super cool to see the same observation now for human visual cortex.
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
1
To predict the behaviour of a primate, would you rather base your guess on a closely related species or one with a similar brain shape? We looked at brains & behaviours of 70 species, you’ll be surprised!
🧵Thread on our new preprint with @r3rt0.bsky.social , doi.org/10.1101/2025...
To predict the behaviour of a primate, would you rather base your guess on a closely related species or one with a similar brain shape? We looked at brains & behaviours of 70 species, you’ll be surprised!
🧵Thread on our new preprint with @r3rt0.bsky.social , doi.org/10.1101/2025...
July 27, 2025 at 5:26 PM
1
To predict the behaviour of a primate, would you rather base your guess on a closely related species or one with a similar brain shape? We looked at brains & behaviours of 70 species, you’ll be surprised!
🧵Thread on our new preprint with @r3rt0.bsky.social , doi.org/10.1101/2025...
To predict the behaviour of a primate, would you rather base your guess on a closely related species or one with a similar brain shape? We looked at brains & behaviours of 70 species, you’ll be surprised!
🧵Thread on our new preprint with @r3rt0.bsky.social , doi.org/10.1101/2025...
RFI: How can brain science shape frontier-scale AGI? The Amaranth Foundation wants your 2-page ideas on how brain science can guide & govern frontier-scale AGI—incl. short-timeline (2025-2028) scenarios. Send ≤2-page ideas by 29 Aug. Link: blog.amaranth.foundation/p/rfi-neuros...
RFI: Neuroscience & the Path to Safe AGI
Safe Artificial General Intelligence through Neuroscience
blog.amaranth.foundation
July 30, 2025 at 3:21 PM
RFI: How can brain science shape frontier-scale AGI? The Amaranth Foundation wants your 2-page ideas on how brain science can guide & govern frontier-scale AGI—incl. short-timeline (2025-2028) scenarios. Send ≤2-page ideas by 29 Aug. Link: blog.amaranth.foundation/p/rfi-neuros...
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
How can we best use AI in science?
Myself and 9 other research fellows from @imperial-ix.bsky.social use AI methods in domains from plant biology (🌱) to neuroscience (🧠) and particle physics (🎇).
Together we suggest 10 simple rules @plos.org 🧵
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
Myself and 9 other research fellows from @imperial-ix.bsky.social use AI methods in domains from plant biology (🌱) to neuroscience (🧠) and particle physics (🎇).
Together we suggest 10 simple rules @plos.org 🧵
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
July 25, 2025 at 10:58 AM
How can we best use AI in science?
Myself and 9 other research fellows from @imperial-ix.bsky.social use AI methods in domains from plant biology (🌱) to neuroscience (🧠) and particle physics (🎇).
Together we suggest 10 simple rules @plos.org 🧵
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
Myself and 9 other research fellows from @imperial-ix.bsky.social use AI methods in domains from plant biology (🌱) to neuroscience (🧠) and particle physics (🎇).
Together we suggest 10 simple rules @plos.org 🧵
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
Curious what cognitive scientists think about this daydreaming proposal from Gwern: gwern.net/ai-daydreaming
LLM Daydreaming
Proposal & discussion of how default mode networks for LLMs are an example of missing capabilities for search and novelty in contemporary AI systems.
gwern.net
July 15, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Curious what cognitive scientists think about this daydreaming proposal from Gwern: gwern.net/ai-daydreaming
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
Thrilled to see our TinyRNN paper in @nature! We show how tiny RNNs predict choices of individual subjects accurately while staying fully interpretable. This approach can transform how we model cognitive processes in both healthy and disordered decisions. doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Discovering cognitive strategies with tiny recurrent neural networks - Nature
Modelling biological decision-making with tiny recurrent neural networks enables more accurate predictions of animal choices than classical cognitive models and offers insights into the underlying cog...
doi.org
July 2, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Thrilled to see our TinyRNN paper in @nature! We show how tiny RNNs predict choices of individual subjects accurately while staying fully interpretable. This approach can transform how we model cognitive processes in both healthy and disordered decisions. doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
🚨Preprint Alert: Who Does What in Deep Learning? Multidimensional Contribution of Neural Units using Game Theory: arxiv.org/abs/2506.19732
The result of my MSc thesis is out with @kayson.bsky.social @fatemehhadaeghi.bsky.social @patrickmineault.bsky.social @kordinglab.bsky.social, Claus C. Hilgetag
The result of my MSc thesis is out with @kayson.bsky.social @fatemehhadaeghi.bsky.social @patrickmineault.bsky.social @kordinglab.bsky.social, Claus C. Hilgetag
Who Does What in Deep Learning? Multidimensional Game-Theoretic Attribution of Function of Neural Units
Neural networks now generate text, images, and speech with billions of parameters, producing a need to know how each neural unit contributes to these high-dimensional outputs. Existing explainable-AI ...
arxiv.org
June 25, 2025 at 9:18 AM
🚨Preprint Alert: Who Does What in Deep Learning? Multidimensional Contribution of Neural Units using Game Theory: arxiv.org/abs/2506.19732
The result of my MSc thesis is out with @kayson.bsky.social @fatemehhadaeghi.bsky.social @patrickmineault.bsky.social @kordinglab.bsky.social, Claus C. Hilgetag
The result of my MSc thesis is out with @kayson.bsky.social @fatemehhadaeghi.bsky.social @patrickmineault.bsky.social @kordinglab.bsky.social, Claus C. Hilgetag
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
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. 🧵
June 23, 2025 at 3:55 PM
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. 🧵
Does anybody have a good review or blog post on advances in neurosymbolic and program induction methods over the last 2 years? I'm looking for something technical that has the depth of explanation I would expect from, say, Lil' Log. My usual tools have failed me.
June 17, 2025 at 12:02 AM
Does anybody have a good review or blog post on advances in neurosymbolic and program induction methods over the last 2 years? I'm looking for something technical that has the depth of explanation I would expect from, say, Lil' Log. My usual tools have failed me.
A $50k essay competition about consciousness... Any takers? Via @erikhoel.blogsky.venki.dev berggruen.org/essay-compet...
Compete in the Berggruen Prize Essay Competition | $50,000 Prize
Submit your essay for a chance to win $50,000 and be published by Berggruen Press. Explore fundamental questions and bridge cultural perspectives. Make your mark on the future of philosophy and cultur...
berggruen.org
June 13, 2025 at 5:12 PM
A $50k essay competition about consciousness... Any takers? Via @erikhoel.blogsky.venki.dev berggruen.org/essay-compet...
Woo! Thanks for subscribing, all!
June 2, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Woo! Thanks for subscribing, all!
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
🪰 A team of Janelia researchers & collaborators have created a new set of tools for studying motor control of wing movements in fruit flies, providing an important #openscience resource for future studies of fly flight & courtship 🧠
hhmi.news/3H3ohn8
hhmi.news/3H3ohn8
May 21, 2025 at 3:19 PM
🪰 A team of Janelia researchers & collaborators have created a new set of tools for studying motor control of wing movements in fruit flies, providing an important #openscience resource for future studies of fly flight & courtship 🧠
hhmi.news/3H3ohn8
hhmi.news/3H3ohn8
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
Excited to share a new preprint w/ @michael-lepori.bsky.social & Michael Franke!
A dominant approach in AI/cogsci uses *outputs* from AI models (eg logprobs) to predict human behavior.
But how does model *processing* (across layers in a forward pass) relate to human real-time processing? 👇 (1/12)
A dominant approach in AI/cogsci uses *outputs* from AI models (eg logprobs) to predict human behavior.
But how does model *processing* (across layers in a forward pass) relate to human real-time processing? 👇 (1/12)
May 20, 2025 at 2:26 PM
Excited to share a new preprint w/ @michael-lepori.bsky.social & Michael Franke!
A dominant approach in AI/cogsci uses *outputs* from AI models (eg logprobs) to predict human behavior.
But how does model *processing* (across layers in a forward pass) relate to human real-time processing? 👇 (1/12)
A dominant approach in AI/cogsci uses *outputs* from AI models (eg logprobs) to predict human behavior.
But how does model *processing* (across layers in a forward pass) relate to human real-time processing? 👇 (1/12)
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
When I realized how dangerous the current agency-driven AI trajectory could be for future generations, I knew I had to do all I could to make AI safer. I recently shared this personal experience, and outlined the scientific solution I envision @TEDTalks⤵️
www.ted.com/talks/yoshua...
www.ted.com/talks/yoshua...
The catastrophic risks of AI — and a safer path
Yoshua Bengio — the world's most-cited computer scientist and a "godfather" of artificial intelligence — is deadly concerned about the current trajectory of the technology. As AI models race toward fu...
www.ted.com
May 20, 2025 at 5:17 PM
When I realized how dangerous the current agency-driven AI trajectory could be for future generations, I knew I had to do all I could to make AI safer. I recently shared this personal experience, and outlined the scientific solution I envision @TEDTalks⤵️
www.ted.com/talks/yoshua...
www.ted.com/talks/yoshua...
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
Applications are now open for a special cohort of the Brains Accelerator targeting ambitious AI research programs, with a special focus on security and governance capabilities!
spec.tech/ai-brains
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spec.tech/ai-brains
1/
May 13, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Applications are now open for a special cohort of the Brains Accelerator targeting ambitious AI research programs, with a special focus on security and governance capabilities!
spec.tech/ai-brains
1/
spec.tech/ai-brains
1/
Reposted by Patrick Mineault
New Paper: Continuous Thought Machines
pub.sakana.ai/ctm/
Neurons in brains use timing and synchronization in the way that they compute, but this is largely ignored in modern neural nets. We believe neural timing is key for the flexibility and adaptability of biological intelligence.
Thread ↓
pub.sakana.ai/ctm/
Neurons in brains use timing and synchronization in the way that they compute, but this is largely ignored in modern neural nets. We believe neural timing is key for the flexibility and adaptability of biological intelligence.
Thread ↓
May 12, 2025 at 2:38 AM
New Paper: Continuous Thought Machines
pub.sakana.ai/ctm/
Neurons in brains use timing and synchronization in the way that they compute, but this is largely ignored in modern neural nets. We believe neural timing is key for the flexibility and adaptability of biological intelligence.
Thread ↓
pub.sakana.ai/ctm/
Neurons in brains use timing and synchronization in the way that they compute, but this is largely ignored in modern neural nets. We believe neural timing is key for the flexibility and adaptability of biological intelligence.
Thread ↓