Call for Papers

Preclinical Animal Models and Assays of Neuropsychiatric Disorders:
Old Problems and New Vistas

A new Special Issue from
Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience (CABN)

Submissions closed September 1, 2023

Guest Editors
Stan Floresco, University of British Columbia, Canada
Angela Roberts, University of Cambridge, UK
Emma Robinson, University of Bristol, UK

CABN Editor-in-Chief
Diego A. Pizzagalli, Harvard Medical School, USA

Special Issue
For decades, preclinical research has sought to provide important insight into the neural abnormalities underlying neuropsychiatric disorders, to help identify novel treatments for some of their symptoms. However, a growing concern with these research endeavors is poor animal-to-human translation, with purported treatments translated from animal models of mental illness often failing to effectively treat target symptoms in patient populations. These translational gaps may stem in part from issues relating to the specific experimental manipulations used to model neural perturbations associated with a disorder. Perhaps more critically, the cognitive/emotional processes measured with behavioral tests used with animal models may not always be related to those processes altered in humans with mental illness. A critical evaluation of these issues and the development of novel models and behavioral assays of symptoms of psychiatric disorders may help refine preclinical studies and improve their translatability to the human condition.

In this special issue, we solicit empirical papers, reviews, and opinions from scholars who will discuss contemporary issues surrounding preclinical studies of mental illness and novel approaches to tackling these issues. A particular emphasis is placed on identifying transdiagnostic approaches to model and assess specific dimensions of behaviors associated with symptoms relevant to various forms of psychopathology, in keeping with the Research Domain Criterion framework. Some papers will specifically focus on behavioral constructs directly relevant to symptom domains (e.g., anhedonia, affective biases). However, we will also solicit basic research describing novel psychological and computational approaches to measuring and defining behaviors in animals that likely have direct relevance to symptoms of human neuropsychiatric disorders. We hope to solicit papers from the neuroscientific communities working with non-human primates, as well as rodents.

Specific topics can include, but are not limited to, the following questions:

1) What are the limitations of contemporary behavioral assays used to measure symptoms related to depression/anxiety/OCD etc., and what are the novel approaches that may overcome these limitations?

2) How can our models and assays improve translatability from rodent to primate to humans?

3) Can a particular cognitive/emotional abnormality be driven by different forms of pathophysiology?

4) Can a particular psychiatric symptom be the product of different forms of cognitive/emotional abnormality?

Submission Guidelines/Deadline
The initial submission deadline was September 1, 2023. Revisions to accepted papers will be due January 15, 2024. Publication is expected in April 2024. All submissions will undergo a normal, full peer review, maintaining the same high editorial standards for regular submissions to Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience. We invite those interested in a possible submission to contact the guest editors. Proposals should be submitted to Stan Floresco by September 1 at floresco@psych.ubc.ca.

Questions?
Contact Stan Floresco at floresco@psych.ubc.ca.

About CABN
Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience (CABN) offers theoretical, review, and primary research articles on behavior and brain processes in humans. Coverage includes normal function as well as patients with injuries or processes that influence brain function: neurological disorders, including both healthy and disordered aging; and psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and depression. CABN is the leading vehicle for strongly psychologically motivated studies of brain-behavior relationships, through the presentation of papers that integrate psychological theory and the conduct and interpretation of the neuroscientific data. The range of topics includes perception, attention, memory, language, problem solving, reasoning, and decision-making; emotional processes, motivation, reward prediction, and affective states; and individual differences in relevant domains, including personality. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience is a publication of the Psychonomic Society and is published six times a year.