"Brain-inspired information technology" is one of key concepts for the development of information technology in the next generation. Explosive progress of computer technology has been continuing based on a simple principle called "if-then rule." This means that the programmer of software have to direct every action of the computer programs in response to various inputs. There inherently is a limitation of complexity because we human have a limited capacity for managing complex systems. Actually, many bugs, mistakes of programming, exist in computer software, and it is quite difficult to extinguish them. The parts of computer programs where computer viruses attack are also a kind of programming mistakes, called security hole. Of course, human body or nervous system is not perfect. No creator or director, however, exists for us. The function of our brain is equipped by learning, self-organization, natural selection, and etc, resulting in adaptive and flexible information system. Brain-inspired information technology is aiming to realize such nature-made information processing system by using present computer system or specific hardware. To do so, researchers in various research fields are getting together to inspire each other and challenge cooperatively for the same goal.

"Brain-inspired information technology" is one of key concepts for the development of information technology in the next generation. Explosive progress of computer technology has been continuing based on a simple principle called "if-then rule". This means that the programmer of software have to direct every action of the computer programs in response to various inputs. There inherently is a limitation of complexity because we human have a limited capacity for managing complex systems. Actually, many bugs, mistakes of programming, exist in computer software, and it is quite difficult to extinguish them. The parts of computer programs where computer viruses attack are also a kind of programming mistakes, called security hole. Of course, human body or nervous system is not perfect. No creator or director, however, exists for us. The function of our brain is equipped by learning, self-organization, natural selection, and etc, resulting in adaptive and flexible information system. Brain-inspired information technology is aiming to realize such nature-made information processing system by using present computer system or specific hardware. To do so, researchers in various research fields are getting together to inspire each other and challenge cooperatively for the same goal.

Brain-Inspired IT III is the third volume of the Brain-Inspired IT series intended for researchers and students who are involved or interested in the brain sciences, technology, and engineering. Brain-Inspired IT III includes 4 invited papers, 7 COE papers, 57 selected papers from the Third International Symposium BrainIT 2006, which was held in Kitakyushu, Japan, on September 27-29, 2006. The last two International symposiums BrainIT 2004 and 2005 were great success, and provided the participants with good opportunities to exchange valuable information and various ideas from multidisciplinary research area. We made a survey of the current state-of-the-art and explored the possibility to establish new research fields in the Brain-Inspired Information Technology. The first 4 invited papers are contributed by outstanding researchers in the area, Dr. M. Kawato (ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories), Prof. Ryohei Kanzaki (The University of Tokyo), Prof. Asla Pitkanen (University of Kuopio), Prof. Helge Ritter (Bielefeld University), who were presented in the special and invited sessions of BrainIT2006 to discuss how the brain processes the information and how we apply the processing to technology. Technical papers cover vision system, other sensory systems, cognition and languages, learning and memory, behavior and emotion, motor controls, dynamics, neural computation, neural networks, and brain-inspired intelligent machines. Hopefully this Brain-Inspired IT series will be a key milestone for researchers and students to pioneer the new field Brain-Inspired Information Technology.