Conference: Thalamocortical Interactions: Thalamic Circuits for Perception, Cognition and Action, Ventura, California, February 16-21,2020

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This award will provide support to US-based students and post-doctoral fellows and junior scientists to attend the 2020 Gordon Research Conference and Research seminare on Thalamocortical Interactions. This five-day meeting is the premier meeting that brings together researchers to present results and enagage in discussions on the cell and circuit properties of thalamocortical interactions, and build on these to explore their roles in cognition and behavior. This conference represents a rare opportunity for neuroscientists interested in thalamocortical interactions to exchange new results, hypotheses, and ideas at many levels, from cellular through systems to cognitive and clinical. This is especially timely because this field has been expanding significantly with the recent appreciation that the thalamus plays an ongoing and critical role in cortical functioning.The intellectual merit of this meeting derives from its small size, which promotes interactions between participants, and the assembly of many top scientists whose research spans thalamocortical interactions across multiple sensory modalities, emphasizing the commonalities. This combination leads to fruitful comparative analyses, raises new questions about underlying mechanisms and often leads to new collaborations. By maximizing both formal discussion and informal interactions, the Gordon Conference will highlight exciting new developments that have implications both for a basic understanding of the emergent properties of neural circuits as well as pathologies that involve thalamocortical disruptions. With respect to broader impacts, this meeting will benefit the larger community in multiple ways. First, it will help train and inspire the next generation of scientists by exposing students and postdoctoral fellows to exciting science and scientists. Second, special emphasis will be given to junior faculty. Finally, a concerted effort will be made to recruit scientists from under-represented groups.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.