capturing the spirit of contemporary neuroscience: sfN lessons for IAN

First, the good news: the Indian Academy of Neuroscience has taken it upon itself to develop strategies to reach out to teachers, students and the general public, if the proceedings of the annual conference of the last few years are an indicator. this is further testified by the thrust given to this area of activities in the editorial policy of its flagship journal, the Annals of Neurosciences. this policy of the Academy and the journal is unassailable, if one considers the ground reality. And that, perhaps, is the beginning of the bad news: for, only 65 of the more than 300 universities of India are represented in the activities of the Indian Academy of Neurosciences (IAN), if the affiliation of life members is taken as the measure. the number of participants of the undergraduate level programs of Indian universities is next to nil. this is when Neuroscience is considered to be one of the frontier sciences with several exciting breakthroughs to its credit. the UGc (University Grants commission, New Delhi) in its model curriculum for the country’s post graduate programs in Zoology, cites Neurophysiology as one among the several optional subjects, without elaborating any further on that; whereas a subject like Gamete Biology is dealt with in detail with an explicit model syllabus! (It is just another matter that in current parlance, Neurophysiology is a highly parochial field within the contemporary discipline of Neurosciences). Of the 72 suggested lab-components/ practicals, in the said model curriculum for the post graduate programs of the country, the only one that has some salience to Neuroscience is an amazingly ridiculous stand-alone idea of the dissection of the nervous system of crab!