The Neurosciences: Third Study Program

The Neurosciences Research Program (NRP) was founded in 1962 as an inter university organization under the sponsorship of MIT. Its primary aim was to bring together the disparate neural and behavioral sciences in a unified neuroscience. This is one of the fastest-growing and most important areas in science. Every three years NRP holds an international Intensive Study Program to present significant aspects of the field and to stimulate research in all areas pertaining to neuroscience. The first program was held in 1966 and reported in The Neurosciences: A Study Program; the second was held in 1969 and is contained in The Neurosciences: Second Study Program (both books are published by Rockefeller University Press, New York). This Third Study Program is based on the most recent NRP conference that took place in Boulder, Colorado, during the summer of 1972.

The Neurosciences: Third Study Program covers twelve topics that have been selected as especially significant and catalytic trends in neuroscience research. These range across the various levels of organization of the nervous system—molecular, cellular, and behavioral. The topics are: Hemispheric Specialization and Interaction; Feature Extraction, Detection, and Behavior; Higher-Order Sensory Processing; Sensorimotor Integration; Invertebrate Neurons and Behavior; Circadian Oscillations and Organization in Nervous Systems; Hormonal Factors in Brain Function; Biochemistry and Behavior; Molecular Machinery of the Membrane; Regulatory Biochemistry in Neural Tissues; Dynamics of Synaptic Modulation; and Interaction of Brain Cells and Viruses.

Each topic has been organized and developed by a team of eight scientists (a chairman, three senior scientists, and four fellows with five years' post-doctoral training), and the contributors are selected from a huge international field. The book emphasizes an integrated, cross-disciplinary treatment of each subject area so unusual in its multidisciplinary scope that it will interest people in psychiatry, pharmacological psychology, physiological psychology, neuroanatomy, experimental embryology, physiology, neurophysiology, cell biology, neurochemistry, immunochemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology, biophysics, physical chemistry, physics, and mathematics.