Greeting

Dear colleagues
It is my great honor and privilege to host the 66th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Child Neurology, which shall be held from 30 May to 1 June 2024, with a pre-congress seminar scheduled for the day before. The venue will be the Nagoya Congress Center (Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan). Under the name Childneuro2024, the 66th Annual Meeting will coincide with the 23rd International Symposium of the Infantile Seizure Society organized by Professor Jun Natsume.

Our lives have been greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Annual Meetings of Japanese Society of Child Neurology were held mainly online, which means that opportunities to interact with you in person are extremely limited. While it is important to listen to lectures and present our own research at scientific meetings, there is also much to be gained from interaction with each other. The impact of the loss of these opportunities due to the COVID19 epidemic is immeasurable. However, from May 2023, these restrictions should no longer be the case, and for the 2024 Scientific Meeting we will retain online content, but our main aim will be to encourage you to come and interact in person. The meeting will be held at the same time as the International Symposium of the Infantile Seizure Society. We are expecting more international participants than in previous years. We look forward to having more interaction with them.

I would like to emphasize the depth and breadth of pediatric neurology with the theme of the scientific meeting as 'From Molecules to Mind'. I have long considered neurology to be the king of clinical medicine. Molecules such as genes are involved in the development of neurological diseases, and their diagnosis requires not only the use of various techniques such as EEG and MRI, but also clinical skills such as symptom identification. In addition to curing diseases, developmental and mental health issues are also important. The types and numbers of diseases may not be comparable to other fields. No other area of clinical medicine is as deep and broad as neurology. In addition, pediatric neurology deals with even deeper and broader issues involving growth and development. To learn such a broad and deep pediatric neurology is not an easy task. We hope that this scientific meeting will not only help you gain knowledge and insights, but also lead to new discoveries and interaction.

One of the main aims of the scientific meeting is to encourage interaction. Instead of a reception, we will have a long time for poster presentations and light refreshments, so that you will be able to deepen your mutual exchange. In addition, as we understand that some of you may not be able to attend the conference for various reasons, we will be live-streaming the educational contents. We will try to make the experience as enjoyable as possible for those who participate online, but, if possible, we would like you to come to the venue and enjoy the contents on site. We look forward to seeing you all.