Dear all,

please find below a call for papers that might be of interest to some of 
you.

Best,
Thomas Wolbers


In collaboration with Frontiers in Neuroscience and my colleagues Emma 
Wood and Paul Dudchenko, I am currently organizing a Research Topic, 
"Spatial memory – a unique window into healthy and pathological ageing". 
The proposed structure of this Research Topic is provided below.

Host Specialty: Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience

Topic Title: Spatial memory – a unique window into healthy and 
pathological ageing

Topic Editor(s): Thomas Wolbers, Paul Dudchenko, Emma Wood

Description: The global population aged over 60 is set to rise 
dramatically in the coming decades. In many countries, the older 
population now faces the prospect of spending a quarter of their lives 
aged over 65, and a significant proportion will have to cope with 
cognitive decline associated with normal ageing or with dementia 
disorders. Given that these fundamental demographic changes will pose a 
significant challenge to health care systems, a detailed understanding 
of age-related cognitive and neurobiological changes is essential in 
helping elderly populations maintain cognitive performance. In addition, 
developing sensitive biomarkers to identify those at risk of developing 
dementia is crucial for early and effective interventions.

To make inferences about the ageing process from the animal model back 
to the human, rigorous behavioral paradigms must be used to ensure that 
the same function is being examined across species. Given that similar 
navigational paradigms can easily be applied to humans and animals, 
recent years have seen an expansion of studies attempting to bridge the 
gap between age-related changes in animal and human spatial cognition. 
These studies begin to suggest that disruptions in spatial computations 
are among the earliest indicators of impending cognitive decline. In 
addition, although many animal studies have identified pathological 
mechanisms with paradigms involving spatial navigation, these mechanisms 
support many nonspatial cognitive functions as well. As a consequence, a 
successful characterization of how spatial processing changes in the 
ageing brain could reveal fundamental effects of cognitive ageing that 
could inform about general mechanisms underlying decline in perception, 
mnemonic processing and multisensory integration.

In this Special Issue, we aim to bring together animal and human studies 
on spatial memory and navigation in healthy and pathological ageing. 
Topics of special interest include:

- Electrophysiological recordings of grid, place, and head direction cells
- Effects of experimental / acquired lesions
- Behavioural experiments in real and virtual environments
- Structural and functional neuroimaging
- Computational modelling of changes in spatial information processing

Article Submission Deadline: Mar 01, 2012

Frontiers Research Topics are designed to be an organized, encyclopedic 
coverage of a particular research area, and a forum for discussion and 
debate. Contributions can be of different article types (Original 
Research, Methods, Hypothesis& Theory, and others).

Our Research Topic receives a dedicated homepage on the Frontiers 
website, where contributing articles are accumulated and discussions can 
be easily held. Once all articles are published, the topic will be 
compiled into an eBook for widespread dissemination; it can be sent to 
all major foundations that fund your research, to Frontiers' network of 
international journalists, and to any list of organizations we propose. 
As the ultimate regularly updated reference source from leading 
scientists, Research Topic articles are frequently cited.

Frontiers is a Swiss-based, open access publisher. The fee associated 
with the publication process varies depending on the article type, but 
the standard publishing fee amounts to €900. Details on Frontiers’ fees 
can be found at:

http://www.frontiersin.org/about/PublishingFees

The publishing fee for accepted articles is below average compared to 
most other open access journals - and lower than subscription-based 
journals that apply page and color figure charges.

When published, your article will be freely available to read on the 
Frontiers site, and will be indexed in PubMed, and many other 
international archives (Google Scholar, Directory of Open Access 
Journal, PsychINFO).

For general information about the host specialty, and to browse past 
Research Topics (also referred to as Research Topics), please have a 
look at the homepage.

http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/specialty.aspx?name=Aging_Neuroscience


With best regards,

Thomas Wolbers, Emma Wood, Paul Dudchenko
Guest Associate Editors, Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience
www.frontiersin.org

http://www.frontiersin.org/Registration/Register.aspx


-- 
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Dr. rer. nat. Thomas Wolbers
Senior Lecturer
Centre for Cognitive and Neural Systems&
Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology
The University of Edinburgh
1 George Square
Edinburgh EH8 9JZ
-
email: [log in to unmask]
url: www.sal.mvm.ed.ac.uk
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The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.