EDITOR'S NOTES 

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Dear Reader,

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As spring blooms and glides gently into summer, the rhythms of renewal and rebirth engulf our every experience—or at least our allergies seem to feel this way. The changing of the leaves and the changes underway at Grey Matters (this is the final semester for several of us here at Columbia, myself included) inspired this semester’s theme: renaissance. Neuroscience is a tumultuous discipline, with concepts and methodologies constantly scrutinized, reevaluated, and reworked; this theoretical fertility also makes neuroscience an incredibly productive discipline, with new insights gained seemingly every week. This interplay of constant renewal and rapid advancement certainly suggests a renaissance.

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This issue, our fifth, details several lines of inquiry that each reconceptualize some small parcel of our neuroscientific knowledge: from integrating new frameworks with classic theories (“Neural Logic Re-Wired” and “Decoding the Brain to Reconnect the Mind”) to insights about the brain casting light on how we situate ourselves in this complex social world (“Making Everything Out of Nothing” and “Fashioning Community”), our writers paint a picture of a field rich with opportunities and unexplored connections. In addition to these topics, you will find in these pages rediscovery and innovation in medicine (“Ketamine’s Cinquecento” and “Seed-ation”), the arts (“Remedy in the Melody” and “Art of the Unconscious”), and our understanding of how romantic relationships can go awry (“Traces Found: Poison in Passion”).

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We are, as always, proud to present the fruits of much hard work and dedication on the parts of our writers, editors, illustrators, and board members. This issue would not have been possible without these intertwined efforts, and we hope that you will appreciate the hours spent over laptop screens and cups of coffee that went into the production of the very pages you hold. We also hope that you will find in here something new, or rediscover something old, to carry forward with you as we all navigate the passing of the seasons.

 

Signing off with gratitude and wonder,

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Samuel Hutchinson 

Editor-In-Chief