Summary: Order and Disorder in Brains and Behavior

Abstract

The 83rd Cold Spring Harbor Symposium on Quantitative Biology on Brains and Behavior: Order and Disorder in the Nervous System explored the tremendous recent progress in neuroscience and how these advances may be used to improve brain health and address psychiatric and neurological disorders. The Symposium explored a vast array of topics from cell types to cognition. My summary focuses on a few emerging themes. Innovative techniques were ever-present, opening up new experimental possibilities. The commoditization of many state-of-the-art technologies is pushing neuroscience beyond its artisanal ways. Another important theme was “circuits in the middle”: Numerous presentations dissected cell type–specific circuits that connect different levels of analysis from molecules to behavior. These new technologies have enabled curiosity-driven investigations in animals to connect more directly with preclinical and clinical studies of human brain disorders. Numerous emerging approaches were presented in human neuroscience, bolstering the hope that circuit-specific manipulations will soon provide improved treatments for brain disorders.