Neurodegenerative diseases are the most frequent cause of dementia, representing a burden for public health systems (especially in middle and middle-high income countries). Although most research on this issue is concentrated in first-world centers, growing efforts in South America are affording important breakthroughs. This emerging agenda poses new challenges for the region but also new opportunities for the field. This book aims to integrate the community of experts across the globe and the region, and to establish new challenges and developments for future investigation. We present research focused on neurodegenerative research in South America. We introduce studies assessing the interplay among genetic, neural, and behavioral dimensions of these diseases, as well as articles on vulnerability factors, comparisons of findings from various countries, and works promoting multicenter and collaborative networking. More generally, our book covers a broad scope of human-research approaches (behavioral assessment, neuroimaging, electromagnetic techniques, brain connectivity, peripheral measures), animal methodologies (genetics, epigenetics, proteomics, metabolomics, other molecular biology tools), species (all human and non-human animals, sporadic, and genetic versions), and article types (original research, review, and opinion papers). Through this wide-ranging proposal, we hope to introduce a fresh approach to the challenges and opportunities of research on neurodegeneration in South America.

This Brief introduces two empirically grounded models of situated mental phenomena: contextual social cognition (the collection of psychological processes underlying context-dependent social behavior) and action-language coupling (the integration of ongoing actions with movement-related verbal information). It combines behavioral, neuroscientific, and neuropsychiatric perspectives to forge a novel view of contextual influences on active, multi-domain processes. Chapters highlight the models' translational potential for the clinical field by focusing on diseases compromising social cognition (mainly illustrated by behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia) and motor skills (crucially, Parkinson’s disease). A final chapter sets forth metatheoretical considerations regarding intercognition, the constant binding of processes triggered by environmental and body-internal sources, which confers a sensus communis to our experience. In addition, the book includes two commentaries written by external peers pondering on advantages and limits of the proposal. Contextual Cognition will be of interest to students, teachers, and researchers from the fields of cognitive science, neurology, psychiatry, neuroscience, psychology, behavioral science, linguistics, and philosophy.

The publication of research articles involving animal studies is central to many disciplines in science and biomedicine. Effective descriptions in such publications enable researchers to interpret the data, evaluate and replicate findings, and move the science forward. Analyses of published studies with research animals have demonstrated numerous deficiencies in the reporting of details in research methods for animal studies. Considerable variation in the amount of information required by scientific publications and reported by authors undermines this basic scientific principle and results in the unnecessary use of animals and other resources in failed efforts to reproduce study results. Guidance for the Description of Animal Research in Scientific Publications outlines the information that should be included in scientific papers regarding the animal studies to ensure that the study can be replicated. The report urges journal editors to actively promote effective and ethical research by encouraging the provision of sufficient information. Examples of this information include: conditions of housing and husbandry, genetic nomenclature, microbial status, detailed experimental manipulations, and handling and use of pharmaceuticals. Inclusion of this information will enable assessment and interpretation of research findings and advancement of knowledge based on reproducible results.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains a significant source of death and permanent disability, contributing to nearly one-third of all injury related deaths in the United States and exacting a profound personal and economic toll. Despite the increased resources that have recently been brought to bear to improve our understanding of TBI, the developme

This open access book, published under a CC BY 4.0 license in the Pubmed indexed book series Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, provides up-to-date information on best practice to improve experimental design and quality of research in non-clinical pharmacology and biomedicine.