Conference: 2026 Neural Mechanisms of Acoustic Communication Gordon Research Conference and Gordon Research Seminar

The 2026 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Neural Mechanisms of Acoustic Communication will bring together scientists from broad backgrounds to advance understanding of how brains produce, perceive, and interpret communication signals. Held in conjunction with a Gordon Research Seminar for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, the conference will foster cross-disciplinary exchange among neuroscientists, behavioral biologists, engineers, and computational scientists studying communication across numerous animal species, including humans. Acoustic communication is fundamental to social interaction, learning, and survival, and studying its neural basis provides broad insight into brain function, social behavior, and evolution. The conference will emphasize mentoring, collaboration, and scientific inclusion by supporting early-career researchers, encouraging participation from a wide range of institutions, and creating opportunities for new collaborations and professional development. This project advances NSF’s priorities in Biotechnology and Artificial Intelligence. The conference will focus on the neural circuit mechanisms underlying acoustic communication across species representing approximately 800 million years of evolutionary history. Scientific sessions will address auditory processing, vocal learning, speech and language, sound localization, genetic mechanisms of communication, social signaling, and emerging computational and artificial intelligence approaches for studying communication behavior. The meeting is uniquely organized around the behavior of acoustic communication itself rather than a single species, brain region, or methodology, enabling comparative and mechanistic perspectives that are not represented in existing conferences. Through invited talks, poster sessions, discussion-led exchanges, and trainee-focused presentations, participants will share unpublished research findings, identify common computational and neural principles across taxa, and develop new experimental and analytical approaches. The conference is expected to accelerate progress in understanding the neural foundations of communication and strengthen interdisciplinary collaborations across neuroscience and related fields. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2626945 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Vikram Gadagkar | Institution: Gordon Research Conferences, EAST GREENWICH, RI | Award Amount: $20,000 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2626945 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2626945.html