Michael Halassa

  In recent years, the boundaries between neuroscience and artificial intelligence (AI) have started to blur. As we build machines that simulate human reasoning and cognition, it's becoming increasingly clear that understanding how the brain works can guide AI—and vice versa. Dr. Michael Halassa, a psychiatrist and systems neuroscientist at Tufts University, has been at the forefront of this intersection, advocating for a computationally grounded approach to mental health through his Substack platform, Algorithmic Psychiatry . Halassa's central thesis is that both brains and machines operate through computational principles—algorithms that manage perception, prediction, learning, and decision-making. The key difference lies in the medium. While machines rely on silicon and binary logic, the brain uses networks of neurons, synaptic weights, and neurotransmitters. But at a higher level of abstraction, both are solving similar problems: How do we represent uncertainty? How do we u...

  In recent years, the conversation around psychiatry and neuroscience has shifted from simple chemical models to circuit-level thinking, and few voices have articulated this transition as clearly as Dr. Michael Halassa. A neuroscientist and psychiatrist at Tufts University, Dr. Halassa has launched a Substack platform where he translates decades of cutting-edge brain research into accessible, conceptually rich essays for clinicians, scientists, and anyone interested in the evolving science of mental health. His Substack series doesn’t just summarize studies—it reframes how we think about psychiatric illness, especially disorders like schizophrenia. Rather than viewing symptoms in isolation, Halassa emphasizes cognitive control—the brain’s ability to switch tasks, update beliefs, and filter relevant information—as a core functional framework for understanding the roots of mental dysfunction. One foundational idea explored in the series is the concept of distributed systems in the...