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.
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? 🤔🧘♂️🦷
@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.
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 🤦♂️
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
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…