Welcome to Neural Development

Over the years, the field of neurodevelopment has captured the creativity and curiosity of an increasingly large number of investigators. Diverse, state-of-the-art approaches have been used to study the developing nervous system of both vertebrates and invertebrates. These studies encompass investigations at all levels: understanding how neurons obtain their many and various identities, how they migrate to their appropriate locations, how they acquire their unique morphological and functional properties and, finally, how they form circuits that are appropriate. And the investigators – the developmental neuroscientists who will write, read and edit this journal – have a variety of reasons to be fascinated by these issues. Some see the nervous system as a fascinating (albeit not especially simple) model for addressing fundamental issues in developmental biology. Some, following the advice of Cajal, believe that mapping the establishment and plasticity of connectivity in the "young wood" of the embryo is a good way to find out what is going on in "the full-grown forest" of the adult. Still others are motivated by the growing realization that many neurological and behavioral disorders, even those manifested in adults, have their seeds in developmental defects. All will find common ground in the work we hope to highlight.Understanding how the nervous system is built is best pursued by bringing together knowledge gained across many model systems; currently such findings are published in many journals, none of which is focused entirely on issues of neural development. The Editors of Neural Development thus believe that there is a need for a dedicated journal in this growing field, and given the rising popularity of open-access publication, we thought that a new open-access journal in our field is particularly timely.Our idea behind Neural Development is to create a venue for publishing high-calibre work in all areas of nervous system development. We are dedicated to provid