Searching for a better understanding of how the mind arises from the brain, members of the newly formed Cognitive Neuroscience Society will meet for the first time March 27-29 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. Organized in part by UC Davis cognitive neuroscientists Michael Gazzaniga and Ron Mangun, the meeting will feature cutting-edge research in topics ranging from memory systems and models of attention to neural modeling and brain plasticity. To date, 400 participants have registered for the meeting. "The formation of the society is in response to a recent dynamic growth in what is now referred to as cognitive neuroscience in the U.S. and around the world," says Gazzaniga, a member of the organizing committee and director of both the McDonnell-Pew Program in Cognitive Neuroscience and the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience. "Investigating how we think, remember, understand and learn is rapidly becoming the most exciting area of neuroscience, and the new society is a reflection of that interest." "The purpose of this new society is to provide a forum for scientists from traditionally different disciplines to come together to discuss the computational and biological bases of higher mental function," says Mangun, chair of the conference organizing committee and a psychology professor at the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience. "All too often psychologists and physiologists have found it difficult to cross over and make contact with their counterparts in different fields." Mangun notes that although there is an emerging plethora of scientific societies, the new professional society bridges a problematic void in cognive brain research. At present, meetings for psychologists are not regularly attended by neuroscientists and vice versa. The cognitive neuroscience meeting might bring together, for example, a cognitive psychologist and a neurophysiologist both wishing to explore the computational and biological basis of attention, perception, language or memory, Mangun says. Enclosed with this announcement are a preliminary program with session topics and speakers, as well as a list of first authors and times of poster presentations. Also included are an advance copy of a UC Davis Magazine article on the new Center for Neuroscience at UC Davis and a copy of the center's annual report and current research interests.