Sandy Keenan edits Viewpoint and news articles for Spectrum. She is a New York-based journalist who has enjoyed a richly varied career — as reporter, editor and newsroom manager — with The New York Times and Newsday. She started out as a sportswriter for the Miami Herald, then moved on to Sports Illustrated and then Newsday, where she transitioned from covering Knicks, Mets and Yankees games on deadline into editing and over to news. She eventually became Newsday‘s assistant managing editor in charge of news, investigations and narrative projects. More recently, with the Times, she served as environment editor, deputy sports editor and a staff writer for the Home & Garden section.
Sandy Keenan
Contributing Editor
Spectrum
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Placing too much emphasis on a specific interpretation of dimensionality, or treating it as an end-all quantification of some aspect of neural computation, may hinder progress in understanding the brain.
Dimensionality—neuroscience’s red herring?
Placing too much emphasis on a specific interpretation of dimensionality, or treating it as an end-all quantification of some aspect of neural computation, may hinder progress in understanding the brain.
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Matthew Perich
7 September 2026 | 8 min read
Dutch primate center awaits October animal research debate
Science is forging ahead at the Biomedical Primate Research Centre in the Netherlands, following a reversal of last year’s mandate to phase out primate studies. But researchers aren’t sure how long the reprieve will last.
Dutch primate center awaits October animal research debate
Science is forging ahead at the Biomedical Primate Research Centre in the Netherlands, following a reversal of last year’s mandate to phase out primate studies. But researchers aren’t sure how long the reprieve will last.
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Lauren Schenkman
2 September 2026 | 5 min read
When we sleep, our brain is filled with spontaneous neural activity. What is it doing?
Daniel Levenstein explains how internally generated brain activity during sleep shapes our cognition, and why NeuroAI is such a powerful approach to understanding the brain.
When we sleep, our brain is filled with spontaneous neural activity. What is it doing?
Daniel Levenstein explains how internally generated brain activity during sleep shapes our cognition, and why NeuroAI is such a powerful approach to understanding the brain.
By
Paul Middlebrooks
2 September 2026 | 96 min listen