Editor Spotlight

Dr. Keith Yeates is a professor and head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary, where he leads the Integrated Concussion Research Program.

Tell us a bit about your background: What is your area of research? What is your most recent journal-editing experience?

I am a pediatric neuropsychologist by training.

My research aims to better understand the outcomes of childhood brain injury and influences on recovery, and thereby foster more effective treatment and management.

My current projects focus on concussion and mild traumatic brain injury (TBI), in terms of both assessment and treatment.

I am particularly interested in understanding the interplay of neurobiological and psychosocial factors in determining children's outcomes after mild TBI, and how such factors can be modified through intervention to improve outcomes. I am collaborating with an interdisciplinary group of investigators to address these issues.

My most recent journal-editing experience was as Associate Editor of the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, from 2010–2016.

I also have served on a total of 11 peer-reviewed journal editorial boards during my career.

Briefly, what are your main priorities? For example, how will you grow readership, what type of scholarship would you like to see in the journal, and what kind of content are you hoping to attract?

My main priorities are to increase the interdisciplinary and cross-cultural nature of the research presented in Neuropsychology. I believe multiple levels of analysis are required to understand brain-behavior relationships, and specifically that brain-behavior relationships cannot be understood without considering the context within which they occur.

I want to strive to increase the number of contributions from authors in disciplines other than neuropsychology by encouraging consideration of moderating influences on brain-behavior relationships, such as genetics and epigenetics on one hand, and diversity and cultural differences on the other.

I believe the inclusion of research along these lines will help to increase readership.

Why is this journal important for the field? What is its relevance to society/public health? What are the hot issues in your area right now?

Neuropsychology is characterized by amazing breadth, which includes basic and clinical science across the lifespan. It provides an outlet for the best science in human brain-behavior relationships.

The journal is extremely relevant to society and public health given the high incidence of neurological disease and brain injury, as well as the resulting human, economic, and societal costs associated with them.

Neuropsychological research also can provide insights into more positive aspects of human function — such as resilience, creativity, altruism, and friendship.

I see a number of hot issues for neuropsychology right now.

On the basic science side, the increasing conceptualization of human brain function as involving networks is having a profound impact on how we think about brain-behavior relationships. I would love to see research that considers how those networks are themselves shaped by genetic, epigenetic, and environmental/cultural variation.

On the clinical science side, the rapid aging of the general population means that a better understanding of dementia and neurodegenerative disease is badly needed. I expect that the journal will continue to publish outstanding research on neuropsychological aspects of aging and associated brain disorders.

At the same time, as a pediatric neuropsychologist, I also see another hot topic being how to promote optimal brain development in children. Recent research on the relationship of socioeconomic status to brain development is very interesting. I would be very curious to see if randomized trials of early childhood interventions showed effects on brain structure and function in children.

What challenges, if any, lie ahead for the field?

Deciphering the brain and how it functions within specific contexts will remain a huge challenge for the field of neuropsychology.

Advances in neurotechnology are occurring rapidly, providing us with amazing abilities to assay the brain. However, the technology sometimes outstrips our understanding of what it measures and its relationship to human behavior.

A major challenge for the field will be to have our measurement of human behavior reflect the same sophistication and complexity that our evolving neurotechnology permits when measuring the brain.

An even bigger challenge will be to articulate how those two domains are related to one another.

The journal itself also faces challenges. To appeal to the broadest readership and to maintain its position as a flagship in the field, Neuropsychology must continue to present the most interesting and highest quality science.

A critical challenge currently facing all journal editors is how to institute best practices in reproducibility and open science. I look forward to working with the other APA journal editors to address those issues in a coordinated fashion.

Do you have plans for a special issue or changes to the editorial process? Are you making any changes?

I don't have specific plans for special issues at this point, although I believe special issues on topics such as genetic and epigenetic moderation of the outcomes of acquired brain injury, cultural differences in the expression of brain disorder, and understanding wellness and resilience from a neuropsychological perspective, could help to make the journal more interdisciplinary, while also stimulating increased readership.

I plan to invite my Associate Editors to propose special issues, and I am open to proposals from investigators doing interesting neuropsychological research.

Although regular research articles will remain the bread and butter of Neuropsychology, I also hope to encourage systematic reviews and meta-analyses, as well as theoretical articles, on key topics in neuropsychology, both substantive and methodological.

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are of substantial interest to readers, and are known to have some of the highest citation rates of all article types. Although they should not displace original empirical research, they are important both in terms of scientific value and journal visibility.

I don't plan any significant changes to the editorial process at this time. The process established by my predecessors works well, and I don't believe in fixing things if they aren't broken.

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