Darius Valevicius
@dariusliutas.bsky.social
Restless neuroscientist and occasional artist.
PhD candidate at Université de Montréal.
Interests include: Emotion, critical psychiatry, trauma, psychophysiology, history and phil of science, painting, drawing, music, game development
dariusliutas.com
PhD candidate at Université de Montréal.
Interests include: Emotion, critical psychiatry, trauma, psychophysiology, history and phil of science, painting, drawing, music, game development
dariusliutas.com
My greebles aren't behaving so I've been thinking about my backup plan to open a bakery or become a blacksmith or something
January 27, 2026 at 10:21 PM
My greebles aren't behaving so I've been thinking about my backup plan to open a bakery or become a blacksmith or something
I had a transcendent experience after watching Resurrection (2025) in the cinema. Standing on the sidewalk chugging cigs for 25 minutes, staring wide-eyed down the street waiting to come back to reality.
January 22, 2026 at 5:12 PM
I had a transcendent experience after watching Resurrection (2025) in the cinema. Standing on the sidewalk chugging cigs for 25 minutes, staring wide-eyed down the street waiting to come back to reality.
I think we made a mistake when we stopped being little rat creatures, and a second mistake when we accepted modernity. Grooming, cuddling, co-sleeping with your fellow rats, all lost to time.
January 16, 2026 at 4:57 AM
I think we made a mistake when we stopped being little rat creatures, and a second mistake when we accepted modernity. Grooming, cuddling, co-sleeping with your fellow rats, all lost to time.
This came up in a paper (Yin 2014) on basal ganglia control of movement. It reminds me of a critique I had of Feldman-Barrett's predictive processing theory of affect - it seems computationally intractable to predict, with a forward model, the metabolic consequences of everything that happens...
January 13, 2026 at 4:19 PM
This came up in a paper (Yin 2014) on basal ganglia control of movement. It reminds me of a critique I had of Feldman-Barrett's predictive processing theory of affect - it seems computationally intractable to predict, with a forward model, the metabolic consequences of everything that happens...
"Yet modern man feels uneasy and more and more bewildered. He works and strives, but he is dimly aware of a sense of futility with regard to his activities. [...] While becoming the master of nature, he has become the slave of the machine which his own hands built." (E. Fromm 1947)
January 12, 2026 at 9:35 PM
"Yet modern man feels uneasy and more and more bewildered. He works and strives, but he is dimly aware of a sense of futility with regard to his activities. [...] While becoming the master of nature, he has become the slave of the machine which his own hands built." (E. Fromm 1947)
To people who are afraid of rats/mice - would it help if I told you they have human emotions?
January 12, 2026 at 5:54 PM
To people who are afraid of rats/mice - would it help if I told you they have human emotions?
What prompted me to say this? 🤔
January 6, 2026 at 2:18 PM
What prompted me to say this? 🤔
Baby's first forays into messing around with RNNs 🤓
December 30, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Baby's first forays into messing around with RNNs 🤓
I'm setting up a little Discord server for informal #neuroskyence discussion and project support (also open to psych and philosophy folks). Trainees especially welcome! I like this platform but sometimes it's a bit tricky to keep a good conversation going :)
DM me for an invite if interested!
DM me for an invite if interested!
December 29, 2025 at 2:17 PM
I'm setting up a little Discord server for informal #neuroskyence discussion and project support (also open to psych and philosophy folks). Trainees especially welcome! I like this platform but sometimes it's a bit tricky to keep a good conversation going :)
DM me for an invite if interested!
DM me for an invite if interested!
@nicolecrust.bsky.social The more things change, the more they stay the same (found in the 2008 edition of Chaos by J Gleick) #neuroskyence
December 25, 2025 at 5:27 PM
@nicolecrust.bsky.social The more things change, the more they stay the same (found in the 2008 edition of Chaos by J Gleick) #neuroskyence
How do I bring moral ambition back to my community?
December 19, 2025 at 3:37 PM
How do I bring moral ambition back to my community?
Continuing on the reservoir business, I feel like "echo state network" (another name) is a good description of how it feels to be conscious - echoes of the previous few seconds and snippets of old memories mixing in with the present moment.
December 17, 2025 at 2:41 AM
Continuing on the reservoir business, I feel like "echo state network" (another name) is a good description of how it feels to be conscious - echoes of the previous few seconds and snippets of old memories mixing in with the present moment.
Currently obsessed with the concept of reservoir computing - has anyone in the #neuroskyence community looked at this in depth? It seems like thinking of association areas as reservoirs is potentially very powerful, a way of operationalizing Buzsáki's "inside out" hypothesis.
December 14, 2025 at 6:01 AM
Currently obsessed with the concept of reservoir computing - has anyone in the #neuroskyence community looked at this in depth? It seems like thinking of association areas as reservoirs is potentially very powerful, a way of operationalizing Buzsáki's "inside out" hypothesis.
How do I bring hanging out back to my community?
December 12, 2025 at 3:11 AM
How do I bring hanging out back to my community?
As I'm gearing up to start my own #neuroskyence projects, I have a sort of desperate urge to make sure my time is spent on things that are going to be truly useful to someone, e.g. mental health clinicians and the people they serve.
If you're a clinician: What would useful knowledge look like?
If you're a clinician: What would useful knowledge look like?
December 10, 2025 at 3:58 PM
As I'm gearing up to start my own #neuroskyence projects, I have a sort of desperate urge to make sure my time is spent on things that are going to be truly useful to someone, e.g. mental health clinicians and the people they serve.
If you're a clinician: What would useful knowledge look like?
If you're a clinician: What would useful knowledge look like?
I watched The Secret of NIMH (1982) (the animated film about the mice) after only recently connecting the dots and realizing it referred to the National Institute of Mental Health. Nice to see my field represented in the media, if only as an ominous and faceless font of dispassionate cruelty :)
November 20, 2025 at 5:24 AM
I watched The Secret of NIMH (1982) (the animated film about the mice) after only recently connecting the dots and realizing it referred to the National Institute of Mental Health. Nice to see my field represented in the media, if only as an ominous and faceless font of dispassionate cruelty :)
A couple sketches done at the MBAM Montréal fine arts museum today
November 9, 2025 at 4:16 AM
A couple sketches done at the MBAM Montréal fine arts museum today
Little view of Montreal at dusk yesterday
October 7, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Little view of Montreal at dusk yesterday
Physio question for #neuroskyence: This figure shows that global BOLD signal is already increasing before the onset of electrodermal spikes (t=0), and falls rapidly afterwards. I get the same pattern in my dataset (also for event-related analysis, GS peaks at t=0). What are potential explanations?
October 2, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Physio question for #neuroskyence: This figure shows that global BOLD signal is already increasing before the onset of electrodermal spikes (t=0), and falls rapidly afterwards. I get the same pattern in my dataset (also for event-related analysis, GS peaks at t=0). What are potential explanations?
Some more figure drawing this morning. Still working the mechanical pencil, though a more rigid one this time
August 16, 2025 at 8:56 PM
Some more figure drawing this morning. Still working the mechanical pencil, though a more rigid one this time
Need some #neuroskyence advice: What would an interpretation be for massive hypoconnectivity between one region (e.g. OFC or accumbens) and the rest of the brain as a function of a between-subjects variable Z? I.e., the mean of all edges for that node decreases as you go up in Z.
August 13, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Need some #neuroskyence advice: What would an interpretation be for massive hypoconnectivity between one region (e.g. OFC or accumbens) and the rest of the brain as a function of a between-subjects variable Z? I.e., the mean of all edges for that node decreases as you go up in Z.
With some trepidation, I'm putting up an article I wrote in 2023 on my personal site. It documents a visit I paid to a friend in a psychiatric intensive care unit that I found quite disturbing and depressing. I offer a little commentary at the end.
dariusliutas.com/blog/psych_i...
dariusliutas.com/blog/psych_i...
A guided tour of a psychiatric ICU
dariusliutas.com
August 10, 2025 at 5:13 PM
With some trepidation, I'm putting up an article I wrote in 2023 on my personal site. It documents a visit I paid to a friend in a psychiatric intensive care unit that I found quite disturbing and depressing. I offer a little commentary at the end.
dariusliutas.com/blog/psych_i...
dariusliutas.com/blog/psych_i...
Watching the Akira Kurosawa adaptation of The Idiot by Dostoevsky with my dad. I wish I had been on tumblr 10 years ago to post stuff like this
August 3, 2025 at 1:56 AM
Watching the Akira Kurosawa adaptation of The Idiot by Dostoevsky with my dad. I wish I had been on tumblr 10 years ago to post stuff like this
Now a PhD candidate :)
July 23, 2025 at 10:39 PM
Now a PhD candidate :)
I put up an old essay I wrote for a history and #philosophy of #science course on PsyArXiv. It's an overview/exploration of psychosomatic syndromes through the last 150 years or so. I think it still holds up despite writing it back in undergrad!
doi.org/10.31234/osf...
#psychology
doi.org/10.31234/osf...
#psychology
OSF
doi.org
June 25, 2025 at 3:46 PM
I put up an old essay I wrote for a history and #philosophy of #science course on PsyArXiv. It's an overview/exploration of psychosomatic syndromes through the last 150 years or so. I think it still holds up despite writing it back in undergrad!
doi.org/10.31234/osf...
#psychology
doi.org/10.31234/osf...
#psychology