A special issue of Behavioural Brain Research for the Philip Teitelbaum Festschrift
Below is a copy from the original Phil Fest website of the announcement and call for contributors to the special issue.
Quo Vadis Behavioral Neuroscience - A Festschrift for Philip Teitelbaum
Our growing knowledge about the brain should ideally lead to a better understanding of behavior, the functional output of the nervous system. And yet, too often, behavior is used only as a convenient assay for some presumed brain function; analysis of behavior is considered as not relevant.
This trend started some decades ago when Behavioral Neuroscience was still known as Physiological Psychology and was closely allied with Comparative Psychology. Yet Philip Teitelbaum worked and pointed to another direction; he wrote:
"If meaningful correlations are to be made between brain mechanisms and behavior, then the analysis of behavior will require as much sophistication and attention to detail as the analysis of the brain.”
His work on feeding and drinking, locomotion and catalepsy, recovery of function and later on, autism, emphasized the importance of paying attention to the details of behavior. Indeed, his persistent refrain continued to be that one should manipulate the brain to understand behavior, rather than the reverse.
Of course, a deeper understanding of behavior can lead to more precise and well-focused analyses of the brain. It is the entire reciprocal brain-behavior relationship that is the object of study. In the past decades, a growing range of techniques to study brain systems at levels ranging from anatomy to sub-cellular function has yielded a depth of knowledge regarding brain function that was unimagined in the early days of Physiological Psychology. But has complementary sophistication in behavioral analysis kept abreast in Behavioral Neuroscience?
Invitation to Contribute to BBR Special Issue
For the Special Issue of Behavioural Brain Research, we are seeking contributions from a range of scholars who study brain function, but who also pay close attention to behavior, developing conceptual and methodological approaches for studying behavior that matches the sophistication of molecular, physiological and anatomical analyses. Is the closer integration of brain and behavior the future of Behavioral Neuroscience? What does the next generation of researchers need to do and how? What lessons are provided by the scientific contributions of Philip Teitelbaum? Papers can focus on new empirical findings, historical analyses or theoretical reviews, but all with an eye to inform new generations of researchers, students, post-doctoral fellows and new faculty, how to use the integration of brain and behavior in the study and understanding of normal and abnormal behavior. If you would like to submit a paper, please contact one of the Guest Editors for an invitation and details of submission.
Guest Editors Contact Info
Susan E Bachus, George Mason Univ, Dept of Psychology, sbachus@gmu.edu
Sergio M. Pellis, University of Lethbridge, Dept of Neuroscience, pellis@uleth.ca
Neil E. Rowland, University of Florida, Dept of Psychology, nrowland@ufl.edu
James R. Stellar, Queens College, The City University of New York, james.stellar@qc.cuny.edu
Henry Szechtman, McMaster University, Dept of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, szechtma@mcmaster.ca