A term that has been defined in a various ways. It is best considered to be an umbrella term for all those sciences that try to understand how the brain and nervous system mediate behaviour in terms of the mechanisms and processes involved in this mediation. At one level, it combines with cognitive psychology and cognitive science to create cognitive neuroscience and at the other extreme with molecular biology giving rise to molecular neuroscience. The term appears to have been first used by Ralph W. Gerard (1900-1974) in the late 1950s and gained wider acceptance after the establishment of the Neurosciences Research Program at MIT in 1962. The breadth of its present coverage can be gauged by the fact that the Society for Neuroscience now has over 32,000 members.
See Bridge law (or principle), Child development, Cognitive neuroscience, Cognitive psychology, Cognitive science, Developmental cognitive neuroscience, Developmental psychobiology, Electrochemistry, Neurology, Neuron, Neuron doctrine, Neurophysiology, Neuropsychology