The 1st International Symposium on "Brain, Vision & Arti?cial Intelligence" (BVAI, Naples, Italy, October 19-21, 2005) was a multidisciplinary symposium aimed at gathering scientists involved in study of the Brain, Vision and Intel- gence, from both the natural and arti?cial points of view. The underlying idea was that to advance in each of the above research topics, integration with and attention to others is necessary. The overall rationale of the BVAI symposium wasbasedonamultidisciplinary approachofbiophysicsandneurobiology,visual and cognitive sciences and cybernetics, dealing with the interactions of natural and arti?cial systems. BVAI was conceived and organized by a group of researchers - active in the BVAI topics - of the Institute of Cybernetics "E. Caianiello" of the Italian National Research Council, Pozzuoli, Naples (ICIB-CNR), with the support of the Italian Institute for PhilosophicalStudies (IISF), and the help of the Mac- scopic Quantum Coherence and Computing Association (MQC2). BVAI was sponsored by the EBSA (European Biophysics' Societies' Association) which in particular provided travel grants for deserving young participants from outside Italy.
The symposium was held under the auspices of the AI*IA (Italian Asso- ation of Arti?cial Intelligence), GIRPR (Italian Group of Researchersin Pattern Recognition),SIBPA (Italian Society ofPure and Applied Biophysics)andSINS (Italian Society for Neurosciences). BVAI addressed the following main topics and subtopics: BrainBasics: neuroanatomyandphysiology;development,plasticityandlea- ing; synaptic, neuronic and neural network modelling. Natural Vision: visual neurosciences; mechanisms and model systems, visual perception, visual cognition. Arti?cialVision: shapeperception, shape analysisand recognition,shape - derstanding. Arti?cial Intelligence: hybrid intelligent systems, agents, cognitive models.