About this Research Topic
Neuroscience is the scientific research movement emerging in the United States around Francis Otto Schmitt at the MIT in the 1960s. It was thought as an unifying framework first centred on molecular biology, and extending its scope progressively to virtually all novel aspects of the study of the nervous system including cognition, behaviour and therefore neurology, psychology and psychiatry. The Neuroscience Research Program of Schmitt was in fact an epistemological project of interdisciplinarity in the brain sciences rooted in the basic science researches and clinical investigations of the early XXth century, mainly developing in the XXth century around the major breakthroughs in neurophysiology and in cellular neuroscience between the 1930s and the 1990s rewarded by numerous Nobel Prizes in this domain.
Recently, molecular and cellular neuroscience also focus on establishing contacts between animal studies and investigations in man with the revolutionary neuroimaging techniques. From a broader perspective, the association of medical procedures and disciplines in the study of the brain can be traced back to Antiquity with famous experiments such as the observation of an epileptic goat in the Hippocratic Corpus or the observation of the effects of cerebellar lesions in the dog by Pourfour du Petit in XVIIIth century, France. Historical enquiries help understand how different experimental approaches and clinical investigations were combined in the study of the nervous system at each time period, and this is what the history of neuroscience means.
Articles sharing this scope are welcomed if authors are concerned with this general epistemological scope and with the integration of some sociohistorical analyses in their study of scientific developments which either were successful in terms of discoveries or not, but of interest however in the association of basic science and medical disciplines and approaches. Articles can either be case studies focused on local contexts or they can analyse transnational networks and international relations in neuroscience. All time periods and areas in the world are welcomed, including contemporary researches if the general perspective is historical and in some ways epistemological. Authors may share their opinion briefly as conclusive remarks on how they see present and future researches. This Research Topic is expected to contribute to the understanding of what neuroscience is now, was in the past and will be in the future at a global level.
Recently, molecular and cellular neuroscience also focus on establishing contacts between animal studies and investigations in man with the revolutionary neuroimaging techniques. From a broader perspective, the association of medical procedures and disciplines in the study of the brain can be traced back to Antiquity with famous experiments such as the observation of an epileptic goat in the Hippocratic Corpus or the observation of the effects of cerebellar lesions in the dog by Pourfour du Petit in XVIIIth century, France. Historical enquiries help understand how different experimental approaches and clinical investigations were combined in the study of the nervous system at each time period, and this is what the history of neuroscience means.
Articles sharing this scope are welcomed if authors are concerned with this general epistemological scope and with the integration of some sociohistorical analyses in their study of scientific developments which either were successful in terms of discoveries or not, but of interest however in the association of basic science and medical disciplines and approaches. Articles can either be case studies focused on local contexts or they can analyse transnational networks and international relations in neuroscience. All time periods and areas in the world are welcomed, including contemporary researches if the general perspective is historical and in some ways epistemological. Authors may share their opinion briefly as conclusive remarks on how they see present and future researches. This Research Topic is expected to contribute to the understanding of what neuroscience is now, was in the past and will be in the future at a global level.
Keywords: neuroscience, history, neurology, anatomy, clinics
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