Machine learning

Recent articles

Collage of images of mice in lab settings.

Competition seeks new algorithms to classify social behavior in animals

The winner of the competition, which launched today and tests contestants’ models head to head, is set to take home $20,000, according to co-organizer Ann Kennedy.

By Angie Voyles Askham
18 September 2025 | 6 min read
Illustration of human figures holding brightly colored connected dots.

This paper changed my life: Dan Goodman on a paper that reignited the field of spiking neural networks

Friedemann Zenke’s 2019 paper, and its related coding tutorial SpyTorch, made it possible to apply modern machine learning to spiking neural networks. The innovation reinvigorated the field.

By Dan Goodman
17 September 2025 | 5 min listen

Xaq Pitkow shares his principles for studying cognition in our imperfect brains and bodies

Pitkow discusses how evolution's messy constraints shape optimal brain algorithms, from Bayesian inference to ecological affordances.

By Paul Middlebrooks
27 August 2025 | 1 min read
Illustration of a brain and screens of computer code.

Should neuroscientists ‘vibe code’?

Researchers are developing software entirely through natural language conversations with advanced large language models. The trend is transforming how research gets done—but it also presents new challenges for evaluating the outcomes.

By Benjamin Dichter
25 August 2025 | 9 min listen
Computer-generated illustration of a brain in a broken jar.

Breaking the jar: Why NeuroAI needs embodiment

Brain function is inexorably shaped by the body. Embracing this fact will benefit computational models of real brain function, as well as the design of artificial neural networks.

By Bing Wen Brunton, John Tuthill
21 July 2025 | 11 min listen
AI-generated, blueprint-like illustration of a classroom.

Many students want to learn to use artificial intelligence responsibly. But their professors are struggling to meet that need.

Effectively teaching students how to employ AI in their writing assignments requires clear guidelines—and detailed, case-specific examples.

By Tim Requarth
23 June 2025 | 8 min listen
Digitally distorted building blocks.

The BabyLM Challenge: In search of more efficient learning algorithms, researchers look to infants

A competition that trains language models on relatively small datasets of words, closer in size to what a child hears up to age 13, seeks solutions to some of the major challenges of today’s large language models.

By Alona Fyshe
19 May 2025 | 9 min listen
Research image of connectivity in the fly brain.

Connectomics 2.0: Simulating the brain

With a complete fly connectome in hand, researchers are taking the next step to model how brain circuits fuel function.

By Laura Dattaro
2 May 2025 | 11 min read

Dean Buonomano explores the concept of time in neuroscience and physics

He outlines why he thinks integrated information theory is unscientific and discusses how timing is a fundamental computation in brains.

By Paul Middlebrooks
23 April 2025 | 111 min listen
Tic-tac-toe board with pills representing x’s and o’s.

Basic pain research ‘is not working’: Q&A with Steven Prescott and Stéphanie Ratté

Prescott and Ratté critique the clinical relevance of preclinical studies in the field and highlight areas for improvement.

By Sydney Wyatt
18 April 2025 | 7 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Stack of papers.

Exclusive: The 23 studies the FDA based its expanded leucovorin label on

The studies include 46 people, mostly toddlers, who have cerebral folate deficiency due to variants in a folate transporter.

By Claudia López Lloreda
2 October 2025 | 6 min read
Hand holding a rubber stamp above a stack of papers.

Autism researchers ‘pleasantly surprised’ by list of NIH data project grantees, despite initial concerns

An atypical funding mechanism, truncated application timeline and opaque review process had generated concern over the quality of projects that would be selected for the Autism Data Science Initiative.

By Calli McMurray
2 October 2025 | 10 min read
Richard Frye.

Exclusive: Who is Richard Frye, the neurologist who researches and advocates for leucovorin as an autism treatment?

Frye has led two placebo-controlled trials of the folate supplement in autistic people; the first was suspended by regulators, and the other has yet to be published.

By Brendan Borrell
1 October 2025 | 11 min read

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