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 Symposium
The 61st annual Cold Spring Harbor
Symposium on Quantitative Biology, held May 29--June
5, marked the sixth time that the Symposium has been
dedicated to topics on neurobiology; beginning with
The Neuron in 1952, followed by Sensory Receptors in
1965, The Synapse in 1975, Molecular Neurobiology in
1983, and The Brain in 1990, heralding President
Bush's "Decade of the Brain." Each of these
meetings has rendered a clearer understanding of the
complex nature of the brain and nervous system. This
year's meeting, Function and Dysfunction of the
Nervous System, was no exception. Talks focused on
integration of neural systems and diseases of the
nervous system. Sessions on psychiatric diseases,
addiction, neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer's,
learning and memory, and neuronal dysfunction
indicated strong potential for the application to
human disease. This Symposium parallels the
Laboratory's deep commitment to neurobiology.
 During
the Symposium, the annual Dorcas Cummings Lecture was
given by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Professor of
Neurosciences and Psychology, Director of the Brain
and Perception Laboratory, and Co-director of the
newly formed Center for Research on Brain and
Cognition at University of California, San Diego. His
research focuses on an interest in human visual
perception and behavioral neurology (the study of
patients with focal brain damage). His talk,
Illusions of Body Image in Neurology: What they
reveal of human nature, explored his most recent
interest, which examines behavioral correlates of
neural plasticity including phenomena such as
"phantom limbs," anosognosia or
"denial of paralysis," and anorexia
nervosa. Most of these syndromes have been known
since the turn of the century and treated as
enigmatic curiosities on which there has been little
research done. Ramachandran has brought them from the
clinic to the laboratory and shown that an intensive
study of these patients can often provide valuable
new insights into the functional organization of the
normal human brain. Nearly 300 supporters of the
Laboratory, as well as the scientists attending the
symposium, attended the lecture.
The Reginald G. Harris Lecture,
inaugurated in 1995 and named for the former
Laboratory director who initiated the CSH Symposium
in 1933, was presented by Richard Axel of the Center
for Neurobiology and Behavior at the College of
Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. His
talk entitled The Molecular Biology of Smell opened
the Sensory Perception session.
On the eigth and final day, Zach
W. Hall, Director of the National Institute of
Neurological Disorder and Stroke at the NIH,
delivered an eloquent and comprehensive summary. He
talked about the dual role of Cold Spring
Harbor--first, symbolically, as the place where new
science begins, and secondly, as a place of
unprecedented scientific excitement. His summary was
based on two major themes--the link between behavior
and biology, and the success of being able to attack
brain disease in humans.
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