Neuroengineering is a rapidly growing discipline that takes its lymph from the increasing cross-fertilization of many areas of technology and science. By means of neuroengineering, advances in diverse technologies and in cellular and molecular biology converge into powerful tools to improve our understanding and treatment of neural (dis)functions. Recently such a discipline has gone beyond the concept of a simple application of engineering principles to central nervous system (CNS) comprehension, leading to the emergence of one of the more exciting interdisciplinary research fields in modern neurosciences. Neuroengineering applies novel approaches to the study of the brain by bringing together tools from computational neuroscience, information theory, electronics, electrophysiology, biomaterials, nanotechnologies and tissue engineering, towards understanding, repairing, replacing, enhancing, and exploiting the electrical properties of the nervous system.

Understanding the brain is one of the grand challenges in neuroscience research. In Neuroengineering such challenge extends from fundamental research on computation in the central nervous system to new frontiers in neural prosthetics. Because of its cultural tradition and its special atmosphere, Monte Verità is the ideal settings to bring together students, researchers, professionals and world-leaders of a discipline that is not any longer in its infancy and that is becoming fully mature.