Achievement and maintenance of the new impact factor 2010

We are pleased to inform our readership and authors about an improved new impact factor for the European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience in 2010. The journal managed raising its impact factor from 2.747 to 3.637 and herewith achieving the best result in the history of EAPCN. Hereby, our journal’s position ascends from position 59 to 40 in the ranking of Clinical Neurological journals and from 47 to 31 in the ranking of Psychiatric journals. We would like to thank all our authors and reviewers for their valuable contributions, allowing such an increase in quality. Further reasons for the rise of our impact factor probably are based upon the high quality of reviewers as leading experts in their fields and the focus on original manuscripts with topics related to neurobiological key aspects. 2008 and 2009, the years determining the 2010 impact factor, are characterized by frequent citations in several issues. Some examples of well-cited manuscripts referring to genetic backgrounds of psychiatric diseases are e.g., Maier et al. [1], Kishi et al. [2], and Gonda et al. [3], for genetic imaging Kircher et al. [4] gained remarkable attention, likewise D’Souza et al. [5] for effects of environmental factors and Koenen et al. [6] and Grisham et al. [7] for gene-environment interactions. Of substantiated scientific interest obviously are well-cited studies on psychopharmacological treatment options and their relationship to neurobiology (Möller et al. [8], Möller [9, 10], Leyhe et al. [11], Bauer et al. [12], Mendes et al. [13], Rösler et al. [14]). This also applies to the neurobiological background of psychiatric diseases, including brain imaging, molecular, proteomic, and biochemical studies (Müller and Schwarz [15], Scherk et al. [16], Martins-de-Souza et al. [17], Galve-Roperh et al. [18], Zanetti et al. [19], Hoeppner et al. [20]).

This success highly motivates our EAPCN team to maintain a platform for neuropsychiatric publications comprising high class methodology in the European catchment area. Respectively, our future issues will focus on multifaceted neurobiological aspects and original work, while we intend to refrain from publishing case reports and pure validations of psychiatric rating scales. In accordance to this policy, in the September issue, we set our focus on perinatal complications and their interaction with genetic factors in a sibling design in anorexia nervosa by Favaro et al. [21] as well as lifetime cannabis use as a predictor of earlier age of onset in bipolar disorder by Lagerberg et al. [22]. These studies extend our knowledge on environmental factors and gene-environment interactions in major psychiatric diseases. In addition, in a voxel-based morphometric study, Molina et al. [23] rely on brain morphological correlates of atypical antipsychotics and find several brain regions related to clinical improvement or non-response. The paper confirms previous investigations in which striatal size has been referred to action of antipsychotics and extends the knowledge to other brain regions such as insular cortex. A further study of Correll et al. [24] on aspects of side effects of second generation antipsychotics in patients without metabolic syndrome addresses aspects of obesity as a frequent adverse effect of treatment. To complete the complex picture of treatment strategies, one study of Kristensen et al. [25] focuses on electroconvulsive therapy in treatment-refractory schizophrenia. In an interesting FDG-PET study of Poljanski et al. [26] in a large cohort of patients with frontotemporal lobar degeneration compared to patients with Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment, a sensitivity of FDG-PET of 89% could be reached for correct diagnosis of patients with frontotemporal lobar degeneration. Cognitive impairments are central symptoms in psychiatric patients, often leading to social deficits and burden of the disease. Using a neuropsychological test battery in a population-based sample of patients with major psychiatric diseases, Tuulio-Henriksson et al. [27] found mainly patients with schizophrenia and non-affective psychoses impaired, suggesting that with respect to this domain, these patients are more severely affected than patients with affective disorders.

We hope that these aspects are of interest for our readership and are looking forward receiving further likewise interesting manuscripts in 2011.