This week on February 15 and 16 NCBS will host a meeting, “Learning about memory: cells, circuits and behaviour”, that brings together the world’s leading researchers on the neurobiological basis of memory. The six speakers, each of whom will give one talk each day, span the field, not only in terms of its scope – from molecular mechanisms right up to network dynamics – but also its entire history.

Tim Bliss, the first speaker, was the co-author, with Terje Lømo, of the 1973 paper that gave the initial detailed account of “long-term potentiation” (LTP) a phenomenom that provided, for the first time, evidence of a possible cellular foundation for memory. LTP describes a form of enhanced and enduring connectivity between neurons that develops if there is frequent electrochemical crosstalk across their junction (the synapse). Thus repeated experiences have a greater possibility of leaving a neural trace in our brains, and so, for better or worse, we are at least partly the products of our own individual history.

IndiaBioscience.org, a web site designed to serve as a central portal of information on Indian biosciences, was recently launched. It will provide a means of fostering communication and building a community of Indian biologists - young and old, within India and internationally.