Inaugural meet of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society India @ NIMHANS Bangalore.

21st June 2015 @ 9.00 am to 3.00 pm

Inaugural meet of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society India @ NIMHANS Bangalore.

Venue: Seminar Hall, Director’s Secretariat at NIMHANS, Bangalore

Accommodation: NIMHANS Guest House

Chief Guest – Prof P. Satish Chandra, Director cum Vice Chancellor, NIMHANS

Guest of Honour – Prof G.N.N. Reddy, Former Director, NIMHANS

President’s Message:
Cognitive neuroscience is an academic field of extraordinary interest to human mind as it uncovers the scientific pursuits of understanding the emergence of mental processing capabilities from the biological substrates of the brain.  The brain and the mind have become inseparable and the studies of this unique domain have become the most challenging and inspiring pursuits for man.  Multitudes of cognitive processes take place in the brain, which we have recognized as related to attending to sensory inputs and retrieved information, their recognition, motor responses and actions regulated by the sensory inputs and plans of actions, and the semantic interpretations of the sensory-motor regulatory processes fuelled by emotional arousal are the major neurocognitive processes of interest to us.  The multifaceted nature of these investigations have brought multiple scientific disciplines together, and the integrated approaches are the only way to make meaningful inroads into understanding the mysterious processes within the brain-mind domain.

The Cognitive Neuroscience Society India is the outcome of realization of the need for such multidisciplinary approach to the study of brain-mind, amongst many of us. The concerned scientists hope to build this interdisciplinary scientific interaction and understanding, which will inspire and facilitate not only their own scientific pursuits but also offer the same to students, who are joining this challenging pursuit in their life.  We are constantly told about the immense potentialities of the brain and the huge unused reserves in the brain, which can be cultivated and used.  Continuing with the scientific understanding of the processing capabilities of the brain, which may still be mysterious and scientifically little known presently, will open the doors to new realities of brain-mind relationship.  Extraordinary challenges are already taking place among young minds all over the world, of choosing to live in virtual reality instead of choosing to experience reality in totality.  There are unanswered questions about the definition and experiencing of reality, as their semantic interpretations can take us to mysterious domains.

We are privileged to be the descendants of the earliest of the minds, which investigated and attempted to conquer the mind. We have concepts semantically still little understood, and needs greater clarity, and we hope our pursuits in those areas may open doors to hitherto unknown realities.  We have no doubt that the mind or mental processing capabilities have emerged from the limited neural cells of the brain, but what can be mentally created is infinite!  Using this processing capability, we keep on creating new realities and changing our world!

I trust forming this new society CNSI is an effort in this direction.  The website of the CNSI and the new journal will help us share our pursuits and thoughts with others.

– Prof. C.R. Mukundan