Note from the President

Having now definitely and unequivocally entered the new millenium, we as EBBS members find ourselves in the middle of an amazing upswing in the interest in integrative functions of the brain. Behavioral and cognitive processes in particular have become the focus of large scale scientific and public interest, in the hope to solve some of the most basic questions of human existence and at the same time develop cures for many debilitating and costly diseases.

During the past year we have participated very actively in the second, immensely successful Meeting of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) in Brighton, where we had the privilege to listen to Bill Newsome, as the EBBS Plenary Lecturer, speak on his eminent work on the neurophysiological basis of visual perception. This last year saw also the end of the term of Barry Everitt as EBBS President, with his never tiring and well measured efforts to integrate EBBS firmly in the shifting European neuro-science scene and make us a full member of FENS. Thank you Barry for your immense investment for the Society! We would also like to congratulate and welcome Catherine Thinus-Blanc and Anna Grabowska as newly elected members to the EBBS Committee! They are the first candidates elected through the recently installed mail ballot system. This brought over 180 votes, close to one third of the EBBS membership and thus a truly representational election. Albert Gramsbergen was also re-elected treasurer on this ballot.

This year will bring our biannual ‘stand-alone’ EBBS Meeting in Marseille which we will share with the European Behavioral Pharmacology Society (EBPS). This will be a welcome opportunity to relate our general interests in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience to the neurochemical foundations of behaviour and interact with first class specialists in this hot field. There will be six plenary lectures, 30 symposia and workshops, hopefully numerous abstracts and a satellite symposium. The Local Organisation is in the experienced hands of EBBS members Catherine Thinus-Blanc, Bruno Poucet and Bernard Soumireu-Murat, joined by Marianne Amalric, Cristelle Baunez et Andre Nieoullon from EBPS. Marseille in September is at its top, with most tourists gone, but bouillabaisse, Prado, La Canebière and the pleasant weather still there. The conference site will be immediately adjacent to the gorgeous setting of the old harbor with its many cosy restaurants. We are already preparing our traditional EBBS Dinner there. Please mark September 8-12 in your calendar for the Marseille meeting, and do not forget to send in your abstracts and registration at reduced rate before April 15.

Apart from the Marseille meeting, EBBS  sponsors workshops. The next workshop will be on attention deficit disorder and take place on Nov 2, 2001 in Oslo, organized by Terje Sagvolden. The following will be on visuomotor control and take place in September 2002, organized by Otto Karnath and David Milner. We would like to encourage EBBS members to organize future workshops, which will receive a modest financial contribution from EBBS. We would also like to draw your attention to the newly established FENS Schools which solicit proposals. It is a pleasure to announce that our long standing member Giorgio Innocenti has been elected as Chairman of the FENS Schools Committee. There is also the possibility to reach out to other continents and organize EBBS Satellite Symposia on meetings of such societies as the Society for Neuroscience or the Japanese Society for Neuroscience. 

Wolfram Schultz