A very large number of laboratories and clinical centers all over the world are engaged in neuroscientific research, from the molecular, cellular and circuit level to neuropathological aspects. To give an idea of the extent of this research, it is calculated that more than 35,000 articles per year have been published in International Journals on Neuroscience during the last five years. Every year, scientific meetings and symposia on neuroscientific issues take place all over the world. For the largest annual meeting, organized by the American Society for Neuroscience, normal attendance is over 25,000 researchers and more than 15,000 scientific reports are presented (the number of scientific contributions is limited by the meeting organizers, otherwise they would probably be twice that number).

Bologna University had the privilege, more than two hundreds years ago, of including among its professors Luigi Galvani, who can be considered the father of modern neuroscience because of the discovery of the electrical properties of excitable (nervous and muscular) cells.

Basic and clinical research on the brain is presently carried on in several laboratories of the University of Bologna, particularly in the Departments of Biology, Physiology, Pharmacology, Pathology and Psychology, as well as the Veterinary Faculty and the Neurology and Psychiatry clinics of the Medical Faculty.