mneuronico

Personal research, AI systems, and creative technology

Nicolás Martorell

Neuroscientist · ML Researcher · Author · Builder

Buenos Aires · UBA-CONICET · LIAA

Personal AI trained on my work, ideas and writing.

Brands and institutions I've worked with

CasanCrem Biferdil Sedal El Perro en la Luna C5N DirecTV Gobierno de Entre Ríos Fundación Sí Gelatina Kabradepata Pauli Bakes SAN Siglo XXI Editores TV Pública Xplora Anda Calabaza Society for Neuroscience Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Argentina Boehringer Ingelheim Fulbright Argentina Buenos Aires Ciudad Neuromatch Ministerio de Educación de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires Buenos Aires AI Safety Hub
New · 2026
¿Qué es (y qué no es) la inteligencia artificial?

What is (and isn't) Artificial Intelligence?

Ciencia que Ladra · Siglo XXI Editores · 2026

A science-outreach book on what AI is, what it isn't, and how to think clearly about it. Written for curious readers, decision-makers, and anyone who suspects the public conversation is missing the plot.

Blog

Thinking out loud

A space where I write, slowly and at length, about AI, science, and the ideas in between — more personal and exploratory than anything else on this site.

mneuronico blog

01 Research

Doctoral neuroscience now turning into LLM interpretability work. From single-cell calcium signals in zebrafish to spatial reasoning in 70B-parameter models.

Selected papers

Explaining is Harder Than Predicting Alone — banner
Concept-based explanations traded off against predictive accuracy in multimodal LLMs
arXiv preprint · 2026 · ML · Multimodal · Interpretability

Explaining is Harder Than Predicting Alone

Tests whether multimodal LLMs that classify images from a few in-context examples can also explain their own decisions. Forcing formally structured, concept-based explanations degrades accuracy monotonically (93.8%→90.1%): strong few-shot visual classifiers, but not yet tuned for machine-verifiable explanations.

C. Quiles-Ramírez N. Martorell N. Díaz-Rodríguez arXiv:2605.28215
Quantitative introspection in language models — banner
Probe-defined internal-state tracking across a 10-turn conversation
arXiv preprint · 2026 · ML · Interpretability

Quantitative Introspection in Language Models

Tracks LLM internal states across conversation by combining concept probes with model self-reports. Shows that logit-based self-reports causally couple to probe-defined states, with the effect scaling up to R²≈0.93 on Llama-3.1-8B.

N. Martorell F. Bianchi arXiv:2603.18893
From Text to Space — banner
Agent path in a grid-world navigation task probed inside the LLM
XAI World Conf · 2025 · ML · Spatial reasoning

From Text to Space

Maps abstract spatial models inside LLMs during a grid-world navigation task. Cartesian text representations win on success rate, and intermediate-layer probes reveal robust spatial features that transfer to unrelated reasoning tasks.

N. Martorell arXiv:2502.16690 Springer LNCS
Audiovisual integration in the zebrafish tectum — banner
Whole-tectum calcium imaging during audiovisual danger trials
bioRxiv preprint · 2025 · Neuroscience

Audiovisual integration in the zebrafish tectum

Whole-brain calcium imaging in zebrafish links tectum-level audiovisual integration to premotor circuit activity and behavioral enhancement. Custom rig, custom tracking pipeline, single-cell-resolution analysis.

N. Martorell V. Medan bioRxiv 2025.12.30.697023
Audiovisual integration in the Mauthner cell — banner
Behavioral + computational model of multisensory escape decision-making
Scientific Reports · 2022 · Neuroscience

Audiovisual integration in the Mauthner cell

Shows that goldfish integrate visual looms with brief auditory stimuli to raise C-start probability and shorten escape latency. Multisensory enhancement is inversely correlated with stimulus salience; a soma-integration model accounts for the behavior.

N. Martorell V. Medan DOI 10.1038/s41598-022-04998-2

Research projects

Open-source · MIT licensed

concept-probe

Config-driven Python library for training and using concept probes inside open-source LLMs. Builds and validates per-layer probes for any concept you can label, runs steering experiments, and produces the heatmaps and isotonic-R² metrics behind my interpretability papers.

Python Hugging Face MIT
Zebrafish multisensory integration — banner
Calcium imaging of multisensory integration · zebrafish tectum
UBA-CONICET · PhD 2020–2025

Zebrafish Multisensory Integration

Calcium imaging of audiovisual danger-stimulus integration in the zebrafish tectum and Mauthner cell. New experimental setup, custom tracking software, full analysis pipeline.

Scientific Reports 2022 SfN 2024 bioRxiv 2025

02 Awards & recognition

Society for Neuroscience logo
2024

Next Generation Award

Society for Neuroscience (SfN)

For the podcast A Todo Neuro for the Argentinian Neuroscience Society.

Argentinian Ministry of Science logo
2023

Ciencia por Contar

Ministerio de Ciencia · Argentina

For environmental science shorts at Xplora.

Boehringer Ingelheim logo
2023

Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds

Travel Grant

3-month research stay in Paris with Germán Sumbre — IBENS, École Normale Supérieure.

Fulbright Argentina logo
2019

Friends of Fulbright

Fulbright Commission

Scholarship for studies at the University of Alabama, USA.

Buenos Aires Ciudad logo
2013

Best GPA in Buenos Aires

City of Buenos Aires

City of Buenos Aires academic-excellence award.

03 Open source

Code I've shipped, open and used by other people.

MAS
Python framework · TOXI Media · MIT

multi-agent-system-library

Python framework for orchestrating multi-agent LLM pipelines — chatbots, decision systems, and tool-using agents. Powers the bot on this page, the CasanChef sous-chef on WhatsApp, and a number of internal automations across TOXI Media's clients.

Multi-agentTool-useProvider-agnosticProduction
Read the docs →
concept-probe
Interpretability tooling · MIT

concept-probe

Config-driven library for training, validating and steering concept probes inside open-source LLMs.

04 AI-based experiences

Multimodal AI products and brand experiences built end-to-end — from prompt engineering and fine-tuning down to the deployment your users actually see.

CasanChef — AI virtual assistant character
CasanCrem · Danone Argentina

CasanChef

Multimodal AI sous-chef. Multi-agent system that finds personalized recipes from a user's pantry, on a chat interface deployed to thousands of users.

Sedal · Unilever

Look-IA-te

First Beauty-Tech experience in Argentina. Fine-tuned Stable Diffusion + LoRAs for realistic, instant hair-transfer in a brand-engagement mirror.

Daily LLM analysis · Next.js + Gemini

Argentina Explicada

A daily LLM-generated dashboard analyzing Argentine economic and political indicators. Structured output, runs every morning, public.

VIA Studio · Internal tool

VIA Studio

Node-based AI video production workspace. Prompts, references and generated shots become a real storyboard, with a public read-only demo.

SpotifAI · AI music · curated player

SpotifAI

A curated player for AI-generated music. Albums, artwork, and a Spotify-style listening experience built from end-to-end synthetic content.

Personal Assistant · Telegram · MAS

Personal Assistant

Multi-tool agent on Telegram. Calendar, Gmail, Spotify, vision-based meal logging, audio transcription. Real LLM, mocked tools in the public demo.

Language Learning · FastAPI · Groq

Language Learning

28 language pairs, contextual breakdowns, conjugations, IPA. Vanilla JS frontend, FastAPI + Groq backend. Public demo with real LLM.

noticIAs · Daily news · Telegram

noticIAs

Daily news report. Scrapes a curated X feed with Playwright, summarizes with Groq, pushes to Telegram. Demo varies by day-of-week.

05 Audiovisual productions

Animated music videos, scripts, and broadcast content — produced in-house or as creative-tech direction for partner studios.

Anda Calabaza · Animated music

Anda Calabaza

Animated, AI-assisted music videos of the Argentine national anthem and other classics — for kids, in production with a small team.

Kabradepata · Kids music videos

Kabradepata

Animated kids' music videos. Original songs, full audiovisual production, AI-assisted animation for a recurring kids audience.

Los Viajes de Gurisa — animated children's series
Los Viajes de Gurisa · Animated series

Los Viajes de Gurisa

An animated children's series celebrating the traditions of Entre Ríos, produced end-to-end with El Perro en la Luna and the provincial government. Visit the official site.

VIA · AI video agency

VIA

VIA is the AI-video agency that puts these productions in front of brands. Strategy, model orchestration, and full-stack delivery.

06 Apps & websites

Custom dashboards, finance tools, immersive sites, and small businesses online. Built end-to-end, deployed, and maintained.

Life Dashboard — quantified-self analytics
Vite + React · Recharts · Sheets

Life Dashboard

Personal-quantified-self dashboard. Mood, sleep, focus, exercise. Vite + React + Recharts on top of Google Sheets.

Health Dashboard — clinical-style biometrics
Vite + React · Health time-series

Health Dashboard

Clinical-style biometric dashboard. Weight, BP, RHR, sleep stages, glucose. Vite + React stack tuned for time-series health data.

Pauli Bakes — custom-cake catalog
Pauli Bakes · Custom-cake catalog

Pauli Bakes

Custom-cake catalog, ordering and gallery. Designed and built for a small bakery's full online presence.

Delta+ — 3D-scanned Paraná Delta ecosystem
El Perro en la Luna · 3D scan

Delta+

A 3D-scanned slice of the Paraná Delta you can walk through in your browser. Photogrammetry, Blender, Unity, web. An immersive love letter to a real ecosystem.

TOXI Finanzas · Local-first · Encrypted

TOXI Finanzas

Encrypted, local-first finance manager for freelance teams. Multi-currency, debt netting, projects and payments. Open source.

07 Art & communication

Music, podcasts, science outreach. Where the technical work meets the public conversation.

Xplora · C5N · Canal Encuentro

Xplora

Co-founded science-comms channel. Weekly videos for C5N, animated shorts for Canal Encuentro, government recognition (Ciencia por Contar 2023).

A Todo Neuro — neuroscience podcast
A Todo Neuro · Podcast · SfN Award 2024

A Todo Neuro

Award-winning podcast for the Argentine Society of Neuroscience. SfN Next Generation Award 2024.

Music · Composition · Multi-instrument

Music portfolio

Original compositions across genres. Songwriting, multi-instrument performance, and production for personal and collaborative projects.

08 Teaching

All projects

Every showcase on the site, in one wall. Click into anything.

¿Qué es la IA? · Book Zebrafish · PhD thesis concept-probe · Library MAS · Multi-agent library CasanChef · CasanCrem Look-IA-te · Sedal Delta+ · El Perro en la Luna VIA · Agency VIA Studio · Workspace Argentina Explicada Personal Assistant Language Learning noticIAs Life Dashboard Health Dashboard TOXI Finanzas Pauli Bakes Kabradepata · Kids music Anda Calabaza · Anthem SpotifAI · AI music Music portfolio A Todo Neuro · Podcast Xplora · Sci-comms Psico Progreso Emperatriz · Yoga site