Patrick Mineault
@patrickmineault.bsky.social
NeuroAI, vision, open science. NeuroAI researcher at Amaranth Foundation. Previously engineer @ Google, Meta, Mila. Updates from http://neuroai.science
This equivocation of oscillations and continual learning is a bit of stretch... I'm surprised they didn't get dinged by the reviewers for neuro-babble. openreview.net/forum?id=nbM...
November 29, 2025 at 3:44 AM
This equivocation of oscillations and continual learning is a bit of stretch... I'm surprised they didn't get dinged by the reviewers for neuro-babble. openreview.net/forum?id=nbM...
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
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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
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spec.tech/ai-brains
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