Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience: When opposites attract

It was not long ago that those in the biological and medical sciences would have little reason to break bread with those in the social sciences. Similarly, those of us in the social sciences spent little, if any, time imagining how our work could be enhanced by sitting down with those in the biological and medical sciences. Although we may still have offices separated by floors, buildings, or even whole campuses, our ideas have increasingly become interconnected in a new intellectual enterprise and our research endeavors have become interdisciplinary across lines that once seemed impenetrable. The biological and medical sciences are recognizing that a full accounting of human biology cannot proceed without incorporating the social and emotional factors that modulate the functioning and health of biological systems, and may have played a key role in the evolution of those systems. The social sciences are simultaneously embracing the idea that the social mind cannot be severed from the social brain and body. Ultimately, a full understanding of the social mind depends upon a full understanding of how the brain and body are receptive to socioemotional pressures and produce social behavior. For those of us working at the intersection of the social sciences and neurosciences, these are exciting times indeed. Although the social sciences and neurosciences have been hugely successful enterprises in their own right, there is a sense that we can now build an intellectual superhighway between them that will allow us to catalyze the insights from both into a new kind of science that will yield important insights into the basic nature of the human mind as well as shape future thinking about applied issues such as mental health and the treatment of addiction. Despite the general enthusiasm for this new kind of research and the fact that the number of investigators has been growing exponentially, there have been no dedicated outlets for the publication of this work. Social scientists have had to search through countless unfamiliar neuroscience journals to find the occasional article relevant to them and, once found, have been frustrated that the articles were not written for the social scientist or in light of decades of social scientific theory and research. On the other hand, social science journals have been slow to incorporate research on the neuroscientific bases of socioemotional processes into their pages. Additionally, social science journals tend to take much longer than neuroscience journals to review and publish new research. This publication lag has unfortunately discouraged the submission of work to social science journals. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (SCAN) aims to be a central home for work that brings together social scientists and neuroscientists to produce top-notch work that has the advantages of both contributing disciplines. In every issue, SCAN will publish cutting-edge research from social cognitive neuroscience, social neuroscience, affective neuroscience, neuroeconomics and political neuroscience, and will do so with the speed of typical neuroscience journals. Editorial decisions on new submissions will be made in about a month, and accepted articles will appear online as in press ‘advance access’ publications within two months of acceptance. At the same time, authors will be strongly encouraged to incorporate existing social science theories into their work and address the contribution their work makes to these theories. A brief look at the list of consulting editors should assure readers that submissions to SCAN will be vetted both for methodological rigor and theoretical contribution. Of course, not every article can be all things to all people, but our goal is to limit pure brain-mapping studies to those that can provide a road map for future work that would engage in testing the hypotheses of social and emotional theories. For authors submitting their work to SCAN, we have worked hard to make this journal an appealing outlet. As mentioned, we have streamlined the review process and have an online submission system that should allow papers to be processed with great efficiency. The journal will begin with three issues this year and then become a quarterly publication from 2007 onwards; however, articles will appear online, in press, as soon as they are ready for publication. Additionally, there will be no charge for the inclusion of color figures. Perhaps most exciting for authors, manuscripts may be submitted in their current format even if it is in another journal’s format. If your manuscript has been formatted for submission to another journal, we will review the manuscript in its current form. If accepted, authors will be asked to revise the manuscript to the SCAN formatting guidelines. For readers, the fact that articles will be online in ‘advance access’ form quickly means constant access to the most doi:10.1093/scan/nsl010 SCAN (2006) 1,1–2