The Institute for Brain and Neural Systems (IBNS) is an interdisciplinary association of faculty and students from various departments at Brown and other universities who share an interest in understanding the brain.  Members participate in interdisciplinary seminars and work together on research projects ranging from language acquisition to the molecular basis of learning and memory. Understanding the brain’s incredibly complex physiology and information processing capabilities is one of the great challenges of contemporary science.  To obtain such understanding is generally thought to require cooperation among many disciplines. Among our results is the universally recognized BCM theory of synaptic plasticity. This theory has played an important role in our effort to obtain an understanding of the cellular and molecular basis for learning and memory storage.