Twenty Years of Exciting Neuroscience
Katja Brose,Tyler Brown,Kris Dickson,Meredith LeMasurierandCharles Yokoyama
Twenty years ago, Neuron was launched with the aim of providing a forum for the publication of research in cellular and molecular neurobiology. In the late eighties, molecular biology had exploded as a field and was providing powerful new experimental tools forprobing cellular function. The founding editors of the journalZach Hall, A.J. Hudspeth, Eric Kandel, and Louis Reichardtenvisioned this new journal they called Neuron as a home for the burgeoning new field at the interface of molecular biology and cellular neurobiology. In the first issue's editorial, A new era for Neurons, the founding editors wrote: Our conviction is that a new journal focused on cellular and molecular neurobiology will have much to tell. Thus, the seed was planted and the journal has grown and prospered. Since that time, Neuron has expanded from its roots in cellular/molecular neuroscience and now covers research across the broad spectrum of neuroscience from cellular, molecular, and developmental studies to higher level systems and cognitive studies, as well as theoretical papers and disease and therapeutically relevant studies.
In comparing the first issues in 1988 to today's Neuron, some might argue that it is difficult to recognize the journal as being one and the same. Yet, while the scope of the journal has changed over the years, its core vision remains the same. From its inception, the journal has been about understanding neural mechanisms, whether this be at the level of molecules, cells, circuits, or systems. As the field has progressed, the journal has evolved with it to also now emphasize the overarching physiological and behaviorally relevant impact that such mechanisms have.
In addition, a cornerstone mission of Neuron has been to foster interdisciplinary thinking and encourage neuroscientists to consider problems from a perspective that is not limited by traditional borders between fields. In their first issue editorial, the founding editors wrote: The technical virtuosity of modern neuroscience is itself a potential source of fragmentation. By bringing together papers using methods ranging from biophysics to advanced structural analysis to molecular genetics, the journal can encourage, educate and sustain a readership of broad technical literacy that shares an interest in common biological questions.
These words ring as true today as they did twenty years ago. There is no doubt that technological advances and the astounding array of new tools and technologies that neuroscientists today have at their disposal have contributed enormously to the advances and breath-taking discoveries of the last several decades. However, it would be an oversight to suggest that the progress that we have seen in the last few decades has been driven only by technology. Rather, key to the success of the field has been the insight that it takes more than one type of approach or experimental system to tackle a problem as tough as the brain and that multidisciplinary approaches and people coming together from fields as diverse as molecular biology, physiology, cell biology, genetics, physics, math, medicine, and computer science is what is needed to move forward.
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To celebrate Neuron's milestone of turning twenty, we have commissioned a special issue to reflect on both the history of the journal and some of the notable advances in neuroscience over the last several remarkable decades.
In commemoration of the journal's beginnings, we have invited authors of research articles in the first issue of Neuron to look back at their original paper and comment on how the field has evolved since then. The first issue of the journal, with eight strong research articles and a review from Tom Jessell, set a high standard for all issues to come. Indeed, it is a testimony to the insight and prescience of the journal's founders and original editors that the topics covered in Volume 1, Issue 1 continue to be relevant to the field even today, two decades later.
In a series of Perspective articles, we have invited scientists from a number of fields to overview the advances in their respective fields. There have been so many exciting discoveries in neuroscience that it was difficult to narrow the field of potential topics to a manageable number. In our selection, we have aimed to capture the excitement and diversity of the field and the journal by choosing topics across the spectrum of neuroscience, from molecular and cellular neurobiology to systems, cognitive, and theoretical approaches. We fully acknowledge that this limited collection of Perspectives can't even begin to capture the full scope of the many advances that have been made in neuroscience over the past two decades.
Inspired by the impact that neuroscience is having outside of the laboratory and on our broader society, with this special issue, we are also launching a new format to the journalNeuroViews. The aim of this new format is to provide a venue for the discussion of issues and ideas that are at the interface of research neuroscience and our broader society. In this issue, we present a collection of NeuroView essays that we hope will give you a taste of the interesting (and sometimes unanticipated) ways in which modern neuroscience research is impacting the world around us, in areas as wide ranging as medicine, economics, public policy, education, sociology, philosophy, and the arts.
NeuroView essays will appear regularly throughout the year and, in addition to addressing the intersection of neuroscience and society, will also cover a wide array of topics affecting the research community, including ethics, science policy, and funding initiatives. We hope that the NeuroViews will take root as a venue for thought-provoking ideas and discussion within the neuroscience research community, and we welcome your feedback and ideas for topics. We hope that you enjoy reading these perspectives and essays. This special issue will be distributed at the Cell Press-Elsevier exhibitor booth (booth #1214) at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington D.C. The Neuron editorial team will also be hosting a series of "Meet the Editors" events at the booth on Sunday (Nov. 16), Monday (Nov. 17), and Tuesday (Nov. 18) from 122 p.m. We hope you will stop by, pick up an issue, and say hello.
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Visitors to the Neuron website will have noticed some recent changes to www.neuron.org and, indeed, to the entire Cell Press web interface. Our websites have a new look and organization, in order to allow easier navigation and to bring new and better information to our readers. To highlight some of these changes: we have introduced an Online Collections section, as a way of better featuring Neurons review articles. In addition to our research articles, timely and insightful review articles have been an important and highly regarded part of the journal since its inception. Together with our Reviews Editors, Tom Albright, Tom Jessell, Eric Kandel, and Jim McNamara, we have sought out reviews on topics of interest to the broad neuroscience community and will continue to build the reviews section of the journal. In addition to the traditional Reviews, Minireviews, and Previews, we have more recently expanded the range of review article formats to include Primers (which capture and explain new technical advances in the field), Perspectives (which allow for more opinionated voices than the traditional Review article), and now, NeuroViews. All of our Review formats, as well as the popular Neurotechnique articles and our special Review issues, are now brought together in the Online Collection section, which, at the click of a mouse, will permit the curious reader to access recent review articles from the last few years.
In addition, the new website design allows us to more effectively highlight a number of our other popular features. The annotated table of contents (eTOCs), which provides a brief summary of each paper, continues to be accessible on the site and as an automated email alert (sign up at http://www.cell.com/neuron/myemailalerts). The popular Top Twenty Downloads and Neuron in the News lets you see which articles are capturing the attention of readers and the press. The Featured Topic section, which changes monthly, provides a selection of recent articles from Neuron on a particular topic of broad interest. The Trends group of reviews journals recently joined the Cell Press family, and in the Featured Topic section, we also provide links to related review articles from our sister reviews journals, Trends in Neurosciences and Trends in Cognitive Sciences. We hope that you will take advantage of these online resources and that the Neuron website will continue to be a useful way for you to stay connected to the latest research in the field. Please do check the site for updates and, as always, we are appreciative of your feedback and ideas.
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As editors, it has been both enlightening and fun to put together this special anniversary issue, and we hope that you enjoy reading the pieces in this issue as much as we have. In thinking back over the history of the journal and the last twenty years of exciting neuroscience, it is both humbling and inspiring to have been a part of the evolution of this field, and we feel privileged to have been able to be a part of communicating so many exciting discoveries to the research community. We, the current editors of Neuron, are proud to steer the journal forward into the future and dedicate this issue to all of the editors who have contributed to the success of Neuron over the past two decades: Zach Hall, A.J. Hudspeth, Eric Kandel, Louis Reichardt, Lily Jan, Roger Nicoll, Tom Jessell, Tom Albright, James McNamara, Greg Gasic, Susan Koester, Adina Roskies, Emilie Marcus, Kenneth Blum, Anuradha Rao, Stacie Weninger, Wen Chen, and Brandi Mattson. We would also like to thank wholeheartedly the members of the Editorial Board, past and present, for their tremendous contributions to the journal.
Finally, we would also like to take this opportunity to thank the neuroscience community as a whole and the many authors, reviewers, and readers who have contributed generously to the journal over the years. We have always viewed Neuron as a collaborative venture. More important than marking a birthday, this special issue is about celebrating this collaboration and saying thank you to the many authors, reviewers, and readers who have made Neuron such a success. As a journal, Neuron is about much more than the articles in its pages or the citations that these papers garner. It is a about a community and common vision that the contributing editors, authors, reviewers, and readers share, that is, a commitment to promoting high-quality research and to providinga forum for the exchange of ideas, insights, and hopefully some inspiration as well.
