Editorial (2002)

I am very happy to deliver to our subscribers the first issue of the 56th volume of the Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. Since the start of the 49th Volume, when our journal changed title from its rather old-fashioned name to the current one, we have made an effort to accommodate more up to date material. At the time of this reformation of our journal in 1995, the new editorial staff aimed for a better quality of article and wider publicity thus promoting citation as one of the important journals in this field of psychiatry. Fortunately, the editors have received a great deal of positive feedback not only domestically but from international readers and contributors. Recent evidence shows that our Journal has apparently relayed to the next runner with a boost for these 6 years. For example, submissions are increasing: 93 manuscripts in 1999, 121 in 2000 to the level of 120, as of November, 12, in 2001. In the five issues of the 55th volume, excluding a special issue for the Japanese Society of Sleep Research which accommodated 59 papers of sleep research, in the year 2001 we published 82 papers of which 30 papers (36%) were from researchers outside of Japan. In particular, submissions from Asian countries increased to 15 papers: seven from Taiwan, four from Korea, two from China, and one each from Malaysia and India. Another 15 international papers appeared in Volume 55 from 10 different countries including USA, South Africa, Australia and seven countries in Europe. Together with the other editors, I hope that Psy-chiatry and Clinical Neurosciences will continue to develop well in the future. It would be very satisfying if in the near future we could include contributions from all parts of the world, and for the next volume, if articles were composed with researchers from around the world. One of the major roles of the Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences is, as the title itself expresses, to bridge the gap between advances in neuroscience and the clinical implementation of this rapidly accumulating body of knowledge. The Journal is also intended to communicate theoretical and practical knowledge of modern psychiatry such as psychopathology, nosology and classification of psychiatric disorders, as well as treatment procedures and psychopharmacology including clinically oriented basic research. We are very pleased to have articles in a variety of specialty areas such as those that appeared in the 55th volume, focusing on the psychological aspects (e.g., suicidal ideation, influence of early sexual abuse, sexual abuse histories in eating disorders, dreams during pregnancy, and transcultural differences of facial expression, etc), symptomatology and nosology (e.g., course of bipolar II disorders, panic disorders in Japanese-Brazilians, borderline personality traits, characteristics of post-ictal psychosis, muscle dysmorphia, obsessive–compulsive disorder in Taiwan, definition of mixed mood state, etc), child psychiatry (e.g., an increase in nocturnal activity in the attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder, psychosomatic complaints in adolescents, etc), social psychiatry (e.g., procedures of compulsory hospitalization, influence of earthquake on the quality of life, caregiver depression for the disabled elderly at home, socio-medical aspects of epileptic patients, etc), treatment experiences (e.g., drug therapy for delirium, drug-induced Meige syndrome, stimulus dose titration for electro-convulsive therapy, etc), clinical psychopharmacology (e.g., withdrawal symptoms of SSRI, heart-rate variability by antipsychotics, clinical trials of olanzapine, etc), and biological research (e.g., auditory P300 changes in schizophrenia, event-related in Alzheimer's disease, regional blood flow and verbal fluency in Alzheimer's disease, seasonal affective disorder, progressive ventricular enlargements in schizophrenia, MRI studies on temporal lobe structures in schizophrenia, MRI findings in delusional disorder, prevalence of dementia with Lewy bodies, apolipoprotein E polymorphism in Alzheimer's disease, etc). We also have accepted some neurological reports on hypokalemic periodic paralysis and status epileptics. These papers easily cover any current topic in psychiatry and its related neurosciences. As a result of the recent increase in submissions, I regret that we do not have the space to accommodate all manuscripts submitted, and have had to request that a few authors undertake major revisions in order for their papers to be acceptable for publication. In fact, 15% of manuscripts submitted fall into that category. Our reviewers do their utmost to provide authors with clear instructions on how to improve the quality of their manuscript. It has been agreed since the time of reformation for our Journal in 1995, that the content of the Journal will be entirely free of bias or slant. The procedure, standards, process and results of evaluation should be as expected of a first-class international peer-review publication. Because the history of our Journal was founded by Japanese researchers in 1933, one of the features is the regional structure of the Editorial Board. In the future, however, we will invite more researchers from outside Japan, so as to obtain a selection of papers from all parts of the world. Another feature in the planning is to have more review articles and letters to the editors which are aimed at facilitating a dialogue with our readership. We are now commencing the 56th volume of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. The responses we have received for several years have been overwhelmingly positive with an increasing number of contributions. This is very encouraging to those of us engaged in the editorial work, but work must continue, as a successful Journal requires a steady influx of good quality, innovative and cutting-edge scientific material. Please join us and make this Journal your own by contributing your manuscripts and criticisms. January, 2002