A symposium on molecular neuroscience was held at the Institute of Neuroscience on March 26th, 2009. During the symposium, Dr. Aaron Hsueh from Stanford University, Dr. Zhi-Gang He from Harvard University, Drs. Guo-Ping Feng and Fan Wang from Duke University, Dr. Qiang Sun from East China Normal University, Drs. Mu-Ming Poo, Shu-Min Duan, Tian-Le Xu, Zhen-Ge Luo and Zhi-Qi Xiong from ION presented their recent works.