Conference on New Studies of Neurobehavioral Evolution; Washington, DC; June 25-28 2010

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

Scientists who study the evolution of specialized bodies, behaviors, and the brains that drive them, need to know about ever increasing numbers and varieties of specimens and data that are becoming available, and how to gain access to them. To promote this learning, a conference is being held where researchers and students will share information about world resources of specimens and data, especially those that are not well publicized. Investigators will exhibit the latest in technology for learning about brains and related behaviors, along with novel and often surprising findings, obtained using new techniques including brain scans, analyses of gene structure and expression, intracellular and intercellular transport of markers and physiologically active molecules, studies of fossils, electrophysiological probes, programmed observing and recording individual and social behaviors in wild natural surroundings, and digital capture and dissemination of images and numerical information. This opportunity for personal interactions among generations of workers, including new students and established authorities, will have lasting benefits for the work of all of them. The impact will be further spread by the publication of the Conference Proceedings in an established archival publication, the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, available in most of the major libraries of the world as well as on the Internet. The Conference Proceedings will be a major reference source for students, scientists, schools, industry, and public knowledge, for information about, and new means of studying, the relationships among the specializations of brains, bodily structures, and behaviors that enable, not only survival in particular environments, but, increasingly, the managing of environments themselves through the behaviors of their animal and human inhabitants.