Many psychiatric disorders are characterized by impairments in social cognition and behavior. There is a critical need to understand the neural circuits underlying social behavior so that we may develop new treatments for social impairments. This Symposium will focus on neural processes regulating normative social behaviors.Traditionally social neuroscientists have not analyzed social processes at a circuit level, while other neuroscientists delving into the circuitry of social processes have not attended meetings organized by social neuroscientists. We aim to bring together a “Dream Team” of researchers to bridge this gap. Specific Aims of this Symposium: 1. Assemble the pioneers and rising stars of several fields who have broad interests in and have made innovative contributions to social neuroscience. 2. Address the key questions in social neuroscience from a neural circuit perspective. (social recognition, social decision making, social bonding and nurturing, aggression, social stress and empathy) 3. Discuss standardization of experimental conditions for diverse behavioral paradigms optimized for circuit studies. 4. Attract young scientists from broad perspectives to social neuroscience. Through this conference some participants will be encouraged to incorporate advanced technologies to their study of social neuroscience, while others will broaden their scope to include social behavior in their research program. While there are other conferences on the topics of social neuroscience, or neural circuits and behavior, no other meeting combines both topics and draws its speakers from such a diverse background. Many of these speakers are pioneers in other areas of neuroscience who are now making ground breaking discoveries related to how and why we interact socially. Consequently, this meeting will bring about a paradigm shift in the traditional social neuroscience field and initiate discussions between much broader communities than has taken place thus far.