BMC Medicine called for submissions to our Collection on Neurodevelopmental Disorders.
Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) refer to a group of conditions that result from the alteration of typical brain developmental processes, leading to difficulties in cognitive, communicative, behavioral, and motor processes. These disturbances are usually associated with distress or impairment in personal, family, social, educational, or occupational areas of functioning. Given the complexity of NDDs, it is necessary to have cross-disciplinary collaboration among experts from various fields (i.e., pediatrics, psychology, neurology, reproductive medicine) and those with lived experience to address challenges associated with NDDs effectively and to support those who live with them.
This special article collection particularly encouraged global contributions aiming to improve the understanding, identification, and management of NDDs and pave the way towards comprehensive care and well-being in NDD patients. We also welcomed life-course studies that seek to delineate the complex pathophysiology of NDDs and investigate the social and environmental effects of influencing factors. Building on our current article collection on "Maternal factors during pregnancy influencing maternal, fetal and childhood outcomes," a particular focus is on exploring maternal factors in neurodevelopmental outcomes in offspring, including pre-existing conditions, environmental exposures, and genetic predisposition.
We are particularly interested in papers that fall under the following topics as they relate to NDDs:
Diagnosis and treatment
- Treatment access, under- and misdiagnosis
- Sex, socioeconomic, geographical and ethnic inequalities in disease identification, outcomes, and treatment
- Educational and psychosocial interventions for a life-course approach
- Disease complexity, heterogeneity and subtype stratification
- RCTs and related new methodologies, personalized prediction modeling and measurement tools
- Diagnosis in underrepresented groups, including those with learning disabilities, aging, sex differences, and minority ethnic groups
- Underrepresented topics, such as regression
Pathophysiology and influencing factors
- Risk/ resilience factors and comorbidities
- Environmental exposures and managing determinant complexity
- Effects of maternal factors on NDD outcomes (for example, diet/physical activity, environmental exposures, perinatal medication, preterm birth, mental health, genetics)
- Impact of medications, immunity and inflammation on NDDs
Disease management and wellbeing
- Influence of societal norms and stigmatization
- Peer-to-peer and family network recognition and support of patients
- The importance of lived experiences and community influenced patient-reported outcomes
- Embracing neurodiversity, complexity and holistic lifestyles
Research conducted in the Global South, patient perspectives, longitudinal cohorts, and studies incorporating patient and public involvement (PPI) are particularly of interest. BMC Medicine is keen to ensure an inclusive article collection, so the authors mentioned above are encouraged to apply to become commissioned contributors. Moreover, submissions with clear evidence of public involvement to ensure outcomes and interventions important for NDDs community should be noted in the cover letter, as these contributions will be championed.
We also welcomed outstanding mechanistic laboratory studies that provide superb translational insights into the future of neurodevelopment and altered developmental processes.
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