In this issue of the Journal, Dr. Brian Chen has written a refreshing article highlighting the launch of his independent research career. Dr. Chen received the Young Investigator Award at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience (CAN) in 2014. This is the first of a series of articles that represents a collaborative effort between the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences (CJNS) and the CAN.

CAN aims to promote research in neuroscience and to disseminate the results of neuroscience research in relation to health and disease (http://can-acn.org/). With close to 1000 members, the annual CAN meeting in the past few years has attracted upwards of 1000 attendees with presentations of cutting edge neuroscience. CJNS is the only peer-reviewed journal in Canada dedicated to neuroscience and is very interested in promoting the basic neuroscience content of the journal because we recognize that discoveries in basic neuroscience are the fundamental building blocks to advances in our understanding of neurological disorders and to develop of new treatments. Likewise, CAN is actively promoting and translating the results of outstanding basic neuroscience research across the country. With this collaboration, we expect to publish in the upcoming issues of CJNS review articles that are based on presentations at recent CAN meetings. Many of the articles will be scientific reviews and some will describe personal experience. This is an excellent way for presenters of the CAN meeting to describe their research and their research stories to other neuroscientists across the country. This is a challenging time in research and health care as the country grapples with serious economic issues that have implications for funding medical research in the future. There is an opportunity, but also a necessity for Canadian neuroscientists to tell their stories to fellow Canadians.

We hope that these articles will not only serve to highlight important advances in neuroscience, but also promote collaborations between basic and clinical neuroscientists in Canada. We expect that this will lead to advances in translational neuroscience research in Canada and ultimately improve the care for people with neurological disorders.