Passages 2018

The past year was one of major changes for the Journal of Comparative Neurology (JCN). Our publisher, Wiley, introduced a new style in several of its science journals that improved their overall design. This includes increased legibility of their contents while introducing a uniform style across publications to facilitate the production process. We worked closely with the publisher to make this transition as smooth as possible for our contributors. These changes were introduced in 2017 and papers accepted for publication were progressively phased in and were reformatted in the new layout. At the same time, we have also developed new guidelines for authors that aim at making the process of submission more streamlined for our authors. Going forward, authors will only need to submit figure files suitable for peer-review. Once accepted, more detailed high-resolution files will need to be submitted. Additionally, tables are no longer required for antibody reporting; only a brief paragraph on each antibody used will be required. Our effort to publish special issues to enhance the journal’s visibility resulted in a comprehensive overview of the evolution, functional anatomy, cellular organization, and connectivity of the claustrum. This special issue was assembled by David Reser and Joan Baizer in 2017, and provided an overview of the interests of the Claustrum Research Society. A special issue on the structure and function of the vertebrate retina, edited by Andrew Huberman, one of our Editorial Board members, will appear in an early issue of 2018. Moving forward, two special issues are in progress, one edited by Jon Kaas to honor the memory and career of the late Vivien Casagrande, a highly respected scholar of systems neuroscience and a dedicated member of the JCN community. The other will contain papers from the second conference on cortical evolution, organized again by Veronica Martinez-Cerde~ no. Two additional special issues are in their planning phase. As always, we are most grateful to the contributors and editors of these special issues for their time and efforts to promote our journal and support our role in providing the neuroscience community with timely and rigorous information on scientific developments. This is also the opportunity for the Editor-in-Chief to acknowledge the outstanding work of our Associate Editors and our Editorial Board Members, for their scholarly dedication and handling of the manuscripts that the journal sends out to reviewers throughout the year. I also welcome our new Publishing Editor at Wiley, Melissa Asaro. Melissa joined us in the Spring of 2017 from Cambridge University Press and Springer Nature where she worked in the areas of neuroscience and neurology. Melissa replaces Natalia Ortuzar, who moved on to new responsibilities at Wiley and to whom we give our deepest appreciation for her efforts managing, promoting, and improving our journal. We are also most grateful to our management team, Erica Byrd and Jonathan Serra, who indefatigably handle the production of papers and special issues, work closely with our authors and production team, and make sure that everything runs smoothly with daily operations. Every year new members are elected or re-appointed to the editorial board. In 2017 we had 10 members reaching their 4-year terms. We were pleased to re-invite Nell Cant, Kristen Harris, Erich Jarvis, and Naoyuki Yamamoto for another term. We also welcome Marta Bickford, Andrea Hasenstaub, Paul Micevych, Shawn Mikula, and Benjamin Reese as new members in 2018 and look forward to their contributions during their service on the board. It is our sad duty to mention here the untimely and sudden passing of Michael Frotscher. Michael had been a long-time contributor and member of our editorial board. His insight, support, and scholarly advice will be greatly missed. We are very grateful to Ulrike Gr€ unert, Tomas H€ okfelt, Ida Llewellyn-Smith, Dick Nässel, Pasko Rakic, David Van Essen, and Leslie Ungerleider for their outstanding work for the journal’s board of editors and are welcoming them as our new Senior Advisors to JCN. Over the past year, three of our Associate Editors, Ian Meinertzhagen, Oswald Stewart, and more recently Gert Holstege, retired, and we will be forever grateful for their exceptional and selfless dedication to our journal over their many years of service. We were fortunate to appoint Deanna Benson, Andrew Huberman, and Paul Taghert, who moved on from their positions on the editorial board to be our new Associate Editors. Together they provide expertise on cellular and molecular neuroscience, structure and function of the retina and visual pathways, and invertebrate neuroscience to the journal. Also this year, the journal honored Fred Gage, from the Salk Institute, with the W. Maxwell Cowan Award in Developmental Neuroscience. I had the pleasure to present him this award at the Cajal Club Social during the Society for Neuroscience Meeting in Washington, on the behalf of our publisher, John Wiley & Sons, and of JCN, for his outstanding contributions to developmental neuroscience. Finally, it is my pleasure to extend my gratitude to many colleagues who participated in the peer-review process of manuscripts for the journal in 2017. As always, our journal can maintain the high standards of quality that make its reputation only through their outstanding dedication, scholarship, and timeliness.