Neuroscience and computation - Foreword
Résumé
From January 7th to April 12th 2002, the Emile Borel Center at the Henri Poincaré Institute (I.H.P.) in Paris welcomed for the first time a postgraduate program fully dedicated to Computational Neuroscience. The planning and final organization of this teaching and research-dedicated program were initiated by an interdisciplinary team of researchers working in Systems Neuroscience and Theoretical Physics. The fact that this unusual enterprise received, in addition to the help of the I.H.P., the combined support of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the French Ministry of Education and Research, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ecole Normale Supérieure, three Parisian Science Universities (Paris 6, 7 and 11) and the Collège de France, is a sign of the growing importance of theoretical and modeling approaches in Neuroscience. A teaching faculty composed of 14 foreign experts gathered and gave lectures for the Neuroscience PhD program of Paris 6, and the joint Cognitive Science PhD program of Paris 6, E.H.E.S.S., Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole Normale Supérieure. The whole series of lectures and seminars were attended by several hundred French students and junior researchers. During the same time period, a series of international symposia was organized, and the present issue of the Journal of Physiology (Paris) comprises scientific written contributions corresponding to a selection of the oral presentations.