The goal of cognitive neuroscience is to understand how the physical mechanisms of the brain give rise to the functions of the mind. The emergence of this new field represents the convergence of two disciplines that, over the past several decades, have functioned relatively independently of one another, with neuroscientists focusing on the brain, and psychologists on the mind. The recent convergence of their efforts has occurred as the result of remarkable new developments in technologies for investigating the functioning brain: (1) We can manipulate specific genes that regulate neural development and function, and determine what effect such manipulations have on behavior. (2) We are now able to record the activity of multiple individual brain cells as an animal performs a complex task. (3) We can now measure regional brain activity in normal, conscious human subjects while they perform cognitive tasks. (4) We can use dramatic increases in computing power to simulate the functioning of neural networks, which allows us to analyze their behavior and better understand how they give rise to cognitive processes. These new methods are likely to produce dramatic advances in our understanding of the brain mechanisms that allow us to learn and remember, reason and solve problems, and make decisions that are affected by both thought and emotion.