In this issue, the Program Committee and the Journal editors launch a new collaboration to bring a sampling of the Annual Meeting to a broader audience. We all have had the experience of not being able to get into the room for a well attended symposium or missing a talk because it occurred during a critical poster session. In this issue, the participants in two of the symposia and six of the mini-symposia for the 2004 Annual Meeting present mini-reviews of the topics covered by their presentations. This group was selected from an outstanding group of 18 symposia and 27 mini-symposia. Our intent was to include presentations from all of the major themes of the meeting. We hope that you will find these mini-reviews useful, and we thank the participants for their enthusiastic participation. Our choices also highlight mini-symposia, a new format for the 2004 Annual Meeting. Mini-symposia give younger scientists, including more women and members of underrepresented minorities, an opportunity to present their work in focused sessions aimed beyond the specialist, thus enhancing their exposure and impact at the meeting.
We hope that those of you considering symposia or mini-symposia for next year will take this opportunity as an added incentive to bring your ideas to an even larger audience. Although we are not able to publish mini-reviews for all of the symposia and mini-symposia, the Program Committee and Journal editors will work together to ensure that those chosen will represent the diversity of topics that characterize the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting.
We encourage feedback from participants and readers on this initiative and how it might be improved in future years. For information on proposals for future symposia or mini-symposia, please contact Julie Orlando-Castro at program{at}sfn.org. The deadline for submission of proposals for the 2005 Annual Meeting is Friday, January 7.
Have a great meeting.
