The Barrels meeting is the longest running (now in its 24th year) satellite meeting to the annual Society for Neuroscience Meeting. The meeting focuses on the anatomy, development, physiology, pathology and behavior of the rodent whisker-to-barrel system. The meeting serves as a catalyst for interactions between researchers in different laboratories and different scientific fields. Meeting attendance averages over 125 attendees annually with the majority being graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. The 2011 meeting will be held at the Charles Commons on the Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins University. The whisker-to-barrel pathway has become one of the most utilized model systems in Neuroscience for those interested in development, plasticity, sensory coding and behavioral studies. The Barrels meeting is annually arranged around general themes which bring together speakers utilizing different techniques to answer related questions. For each theme there will be three or four invited presentations (30 min) delivered by established researchers, followed by 4-6 shorter (15 min) talks by more junior researchers and graduate students. In addition there is a poster session (typically 50-60 posters are presented annually) and a data blitzes (5 min talks) for the latest results. This mix of long and short talks and poste presentations provides ample opportunity for new researchers to present their findings to an international audience of scientific peers. The Program Committee works via invitation of the invited speakers and selection of the short talks to maximize geographical, ethnic, career level and gender diversity. The Barrels meeting consistently encourages researchers to use the Barrels as a model system to explore behavior, development, sensory and motor function as well as a model to understand clinical disorders. Each year, the Barrels meeting invite's individuals from outside the "Barrels community" to present their research in order to expose the community to new and exciting developments. The Barrels meeting is held just prior to the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting which allows researchers, especially trainees to conveniently attend both meetings consecutively without having to make additional travel plans. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The Barrels meeting is the longest running (now in its 24th year) satellite meeting to the annual Society for Neuroscience Meeting. The meeting focuses on the anatomy, development, physiology and behavior of the rodent whisker-to-barrel system as model to understand brain functioning under normal and pathological conditions. Disclaimer: Please note that the following critiques were prepared by the reviewers prior to the Study Section meeting and are provided in an essentially unedited form. While there is opportunity for the reviewers to update or revise their written evaluation, based upon the group's discussion, there is no guarantee that individual critiques have been updated subsequent to the discussion at the meeting. Therefore, the critiques may not fully reflect the final opinions of th individual reviewers at the close of group discussion or the final majority opinion of the group. Thus the Resume and Summary of Discussion is the final word on what the reviewers actually considered critical at the meeting.