In 1987, the National Committee for Research in Neurological and Communicative Disorders collaborated with an National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke advisory council to propose a large-scale attempt to build on recent advances in order to further research and clinical development in neuroscience. This proposal to designate the decade, beginning January 1990, as the "Decade of the Brain", was sponsored by Representative Silvio O. Conte, and passed by the United States Congress in a joint resolution on March 8, 1989. A formal proclamation was thereafter issued by then President of the United States George H. W. Bush on July 18, 1990.
