∂DSA finds lots of RNN solutions to the same integration task: Line attractors ✅ Feedforward chains ✅ Oscillations ✅ Unstable dynamics ✅

Mitchell Ostrow@neurostrow.bsky.social · 6h ago

We also built a fast, differentiable form of DSA — ∂DSA. With this, we showed we can train RNNs online with DSA to learn novel, never-before-hypothesized solutions to computational tasks! (Stay tuned for future work on this too!) (8/)

DSAmaxxing for comparing dynamical systems! Some really great work from @neurostrow.bsky.social on advancing DSA to be able to shed light on complex, noisy neural dynamics AND using DSA as a regularizer to discover novel RNN solutions Really lucky to have been included and involved in this!

Mitchell Ostrow@neurostrow.bsky.social · 6h ago

Very excited to announce our most recent paper! TL;DR we made our prior work on comparing dynamics (DSA) much faster and generalizable to diverse data domains and problem settings (1/)

Masa's paper is out in Hippocampus. The left-right alternation of hippocampal theta sequences at T-maze choice points, much loved as a 'planning' signal, falls straight out of MEC dynamics. Well done @masahironakano.bsky.social, fun project with @clopathlab.bsky.social doi.org/10.1002/hipo.70131

Our group discovered that reasoning models produce fractals when asked to solve hard problems. We can use nonlinear dynamics to probe the thinking processes of recurrent depth models on Sudoku, mathematics, and even ARC-AGI (1/N) arxiv.org/abs/2609.04963

This is wild. >1/2 of HC synapses disappear in artificial hibernation, come back in same/similar locations & memories intact. ~1/2 of engram synapses-between two memory-tagged cells-are clustered on dendrites, those preferentially spared. Not biggest synapses. 1/ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New paper from the BCM Neurosurgery research team! "Neural basis of compositional control" led by @assiachericoni.bsky.social and @justfineneuro.bsky.social ! 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Neural basis of compositional control - Nature

Behaviour of human participants in a prey-pursuit task reflects dynamic blending of goal-specific control policies, with hippocampus estimating latent states, anterior cingulate cortex orchestrating p...

nature.com

How do you "see" with electric eyes? How does collective behavior emerge from individual interactions? Nocturnal weakly electric fish evolved to do this, but studying naturalistic social behavior is very hard. Our solution? Virtual 'fish' 🤖🐟⚡ 📄 arxiv.org/abs/2511.08436

Is space & time coding in entorhinal cortex interchangeable? Cells switching between space & time as needed by task? For some cells yes, and other no: Spatial and temporal representations are organized along a stable coding gradient in the medial entorhinal cortex www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New review on ecological visual processing. Really enjoyed writing this as part of a longstanding collaboration with @crisniell.bsky.social, @mbeyeler.bsky.social, and @spencerlaveresmith.bsky.social

Spencer LaVere Smith@spencerlaveresmith.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Ecological Visual Processing in the Mouse - with @michaelgoard.bsky.social @crisniell.bsky.social @mbeyeler.bsky.social Visual computations that are engaged in ecological contexts: active sensing, motion processing, scene analysis, distance estimation, and spatial perception. doi.org/10.1146/annu...

Why did RNNs fail to learn long-term dependencies? What if we added one more modification, maybe now? It turns out we can give a pretty broad, analytical answer! See the attached paper for a rigorous treatment using centre manifolds, low-rank RNNs, and dynamical systems theory! go.aps.org/4fXWEeF

Ghost Mechanism: An Analytical Model of Abrupt Learning in Recurrent Networks

This study establishes the ghost mechanism as an underlying mechanism for abrupt learning, whereby the recurrent neural network develops ghost points---transient dynamical bottlenecks---and identifies...

go.aps.org

Physical Review X@physrevx.aps.org · 3mo ago

Why do neural networks undergo abrupt learning after training on memory tasks? New research traces this phenomenon to a “ghosting” mechanism that locks the system into a no-learning zone and proposes two practical fixes to address these pitfalls. 📝 https://go.aps.org/4fXWEeF

@fatihdinc.bsky.social won the Richard C. DiPrima Prize from SIAM! He is an incredible scientist and I feel genuinely lucky to work with him alongside @wtredman.bsky.social and @ninamiolane.bsky.social . Congrats Fatih! Read more here: news.ucsb.edu/2026/022632/...

New mathematical frameworks reveal how stable thoughts emerge from chaotic brain activity

Postdoc Fatih Dinc has been recognized by the the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics for his work developing a bridge between mathematics and neuroscience.

news.ucsb.edu

Ever wonder how your brain navigates the real world? 🧠 Most spatial navigation studies use flat, 2D mazes. But the real world is hilly, irregular, and bumpy! ⛰️ Our new paper in #ScienceAdvances asked a simple question: How does the brain map uneven terrain? 📄 doi.org/10.1126/scia... 🧵👇️️️ 1/

🚨 New paper in @nature.com We asked why two hippocampal areas with very different anatomy, CA3 and CA1, often seem to code space so similarly? By recording bats flying up to 200m, we found that the difference was hidden by scale! www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵 1/11

Sparse-to-dense coding transformation between hippocampal areas CA3 and CA1 - Nature

The hippocampus exhibits a CA3-to-CA1 coding transformation that combines fast learning with an efficient, compressed neural code.

nature.com

Now in PRE: "Transient dynamics of associative memory models." I argue that the "blackout catastrophe" is not catastrophic when viewed from an out-of-equilibrium, dynamical perspective. Journal: journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/42y2-bsh1 PDF: dclark.io/media/clark-...

Very excited to announce the first preprint from the lab @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social -- "Predictive pursuit emerges in high-dimensional RNNs." @wtredman.bsky.social (starting his own group at JHU this fall) summarizes the work nicely in this thread.

Will Redman@wtredman.bsky.social · 5mo ago

New preprint out 🚨 “Predictive pursuit emerges in high-dimensional recurrent neural networks”! This was an awesome collaboration with co-first author @fatihdinc.bsky.social , @andyalexander.bsky.social, @xiaoxiao-lin.bsky.social, and May Chen biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/

New preprint out 🚨 “Predictive pursuit emerges in high-dimensional recurrent neural networks”! This was an awesome collaboration with co-first author @fatihdinc.bsky.social , @andyalexander.bsky.social, @xiaoxiao-lin.bsky.social, and May Chen biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/

✍️ In the @kempnerinstitute.bsky.social blog: our new tool built to compare the dynamics of complex systems when both internal circuitry and external inputs shape their behavior. Catch @annhuang42.bsky.social presenting this work at #ICLR! kempnerinstitute.harvard.edu/research/dee...

InputDSA: Demixing then comparing recurrent and externally driven dynamics in complex systems - Kempner Institute

We explored how to measure the similarity between two complex systems when they are driven by external inputs, like biological neural circuits or reinforcement learning agents. Our novel method, calle...

kempnerinstitute.harvard.edu

[ #ICLR2026 ] How do we know if two systems are performing the same computation when they are constantly driven by different external inputs? 🧠🤖 I’ll be presenting our novel method InputDSA tomorrow April 23 (2:15pm-4:45pm EDT in Pavilion 3 P3-#1614)📍 Come swing by our poster! I’d love to chat!

Kanaka Rajan@kanakarajanphd.bsky.social · 5mo ago

✍️ In the @kempnerinstitute.bsky.social blog: our new tool built to compare the dynamics of complex systems when both internal circuitry and external inputs shape their behavior. Catch @annhuang42.bsky.social presenting this work at #ICLR! kempnerinstitute.harvard.edu/research/dee...

Excited to be at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems for @cpalconf.bsky.social in Tübingen, Germany! A beautiful setting for a great 3 days ahead!

Super excited about this work and to have gotten a chance to work with @andyalexander.bsky.social @fatihdinc.bsky.social @xiaoxiao-lin.bsky.social and May Chan on predictive pursuit in RNNs and mice!

andy alexander@andyalexander.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Come check out our poster "[2-018] Predictive pursuit emerges in high dimensions" Friday from 1-4p if you are at #cosyne2016! This work was led (and is presented) by the amazing @wtredman.bsky.social alongside an awesome team incld. @xiaoxiao-lin.bsky.social, @fatihdinc.bsky.social, and May Chan.

NEW from the #KempnerInstitute: InputDSA, a tool to separate intrinsic dynamics from input-driven effects—enabling accurate, efficient comparisons of complex systems with external inputs. Read the #DeeperLearning blog post by @annhuang42.bsky.social & @kanakarajanphd.bsky.social: bit.ly/4bkrvy9

InputDSA: Demixing then comparing recurrent and externally driven dynamics in complex systems - Kempner Institute

We explored how to measure the similarity between two complex systems when they are driven by external inputs, like biological neural circuits or reinforcement learning agents. Our novel method, calle...

bit.ly

Wanna earn yourself one of these bad boys? Sign up to be an Action Editor for TMLR! We are also looking for reviewers as well. Please fill out one of the following forms: - Volunteer to action editor: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... - Volunteer to review: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

How do time series foundation models forecast unseen dynamical systems? In new experiments, we find that small transformers learn to approximate transfer operators in-context. (1/N) arxiv.org/abs/2602.18679

Really excited by this awesome work from @abrate.bsky.social TDLR - in self supervised predictive models policy really affects representations. If you use policy extracted from rats of different ages the representations that emerge mirror those in the rats.

Marco P Abrate@abrate.bsky.social · 8mo ago

What drives the sequential emergence of spatial neurons in developing rats? In our ICLR 2026 paper, we show how changes in movement statistics drive spatial tuning. Our model replicates experimental timelines and predicts novel conjunctive tuning maturation. doi.org/10.64898/2025.12.30.696864

Wanna compare dynamics across neural data, RNNs, or dynamical systems? We got a fast and furious method🏎️ The 1st preprint of my PhD 🥳 fast dynamical similarity analysis (fastDSA): 📜: arxiv.org/abs/2511.22828 💻: github.com/CMC-lab/fast... I’ll be @cosynemeeting.bsky.social - happy to chat 😉

Join us in advancing data science and AI research! The Johns Hopkins Data Science and AI Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is now accepting applications for the 2026–2027 academic year. Apply now! Deadline: Jan 23, 2026. Details and apply: apply.interfolio.com/179059

Our next paper on comparing dynamical systems (with special interest to artificial and biological neural networks) is out!! Joint work with @annhuang42.bsky.social , as well as @satpreetsingh.bsky.social , @leokoz8.bsky.social , Ila Fiete, and @kanakarajanphd.bsky.social : arxiv.org/pdf/2510.25943

Calling all junior researchers! Apply now for CPAL's Rising Star Award💫 A great opportunity to get recognized by the community and network with senior researchers! Apply now through December 15th: cpal.cc/rising_stars...

Take a break from hunting demons and submit to CPAL! Now accepting submissions on OpenReview openreview.net/group?id=CPA...

Frustrated by a rejection from NeurIPS 😠? Consider submitting your work on sparsity/optimization/learning to CPAL, a conference and community that *appreciates* high quality work ☺️! Deadline December 5th: cpal.cc