A mini-symposium on "Mechanisms of Plasticity, from Molecules to MRI" was held at the Institute of Neuroscience on March 11th, 2008. During the symposium, Prof. Brigitte Roeder from the University of Hamburg, Dr. Joerg-Michael Breustedt from the Charit？？ University Medicine Berlin, Dr. Christian Lohmann from the Max-Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Munich and Prof. Martin Korte from the Technical University at Braunschweig presented their recent works in talks entitled "Multisensory processing and the sensory deprivation approach", "The role of Munc13-2 in hippocampal synaptic transmission and plasticity", "How neurons choose partners: Imaging structure and function of developing synapses" and "The Ying and Yang of Neurotrophin receptor signalling in the process of synaptic plasticity: results and fairytales".

Before the symposium, the German scientists visited several ION laboratories, talking to faculty members with shared research interests, and had discussions with graduate students over boxed lunches.