New SPIE Journals

The newest SPIE journals, Neurophotonics and the Journal of Medical Imaging (JMI), began publishing on the SPIE Digital Library this spring.

Neurophotonics, one of three new journals that SPIE is introducing this year, was launched at the end of May to recognize the advanced optical methods that are driving a revolution in the neurosciences, says SPIE member David Boas, editor-in-chief.

Boas, of Massachusetts General Hospital (USA), the teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, writes in the first issue’s editorial that optical methods and applications for imaging and manipulation of brain structure and function are growing rapidly and are advancing our understanding of brain phenomena.

They include electrical excitability, neuroglial partnership, neurovascular signaling, metabolic activity, and hemodynamics in health and disease.

“Neurophotonics provides a highly visible focal point to facilitate and accelerate the rapidly expanding impact of this discipline,” Boas says. “A key goal is to foster a greater awareness and interaction among the photonics, neuroscience, and clinical communities that reflect the diversity of the discipline.”

Papers submitted for peer-review to date span the journal’s scope, covering topics such as functional near-infrared spectroscopy, optogenetics, photoacoustics, optical coherence tomography, laser speckle contrast imaging, neural stimulation, energy metabolism, Alzheimer’s disease, and calcium dynamics.

A collection of articles in the first issue is dedicated to the US BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) and explores the impact that optics and photonics will have on understanding how the brain works.

Upcoming special sections will focus on causal control of biological systems with light as well as light microscopy of connectivity. In addition, a special section honoring neurophotonics pioneer Lawrence Cohen is being organized for the July 2015 issue of Neurophotonics. Manuscripts are due 1 October.

Neurophotonics will be published quarterly at first, increasing in frequency as the journal grows, with each article published online immediately after acceptance. And like articles in JMI and the Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems, articles in Neurophotonics will be freely available online through the end of 2015.

Among the first to be published in the inaugural issue of the SPIE Journal of Medical Imaging are articles on image processing for computed tomography, the evaluation of digital fundus images, and multiframe registration of real-time 3D echocardiography.

“The response to our initial call for papers in October 2013 has been extraordinary,” said SPIE Fellow and Board Member Maryellen Giger, JMI's editor in chief.

In an editorial introducing JMI, Giger noted that the medical-imaging community, who come from academia, industry, government labs, and medical institutions, have varying publication needs. In particular, the approximately 1200 attendees of the annual SPIE Medical Imaging symposium, she said, “have repeatedly voiced the need for a peer-reviewed avenue for the research they present at the conference.

“Having both the proceedings of the conference and now this peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Imaging will fulfill these multiple needs.”

Both the medical imaging journal and the symposium cover such topics as tomographic reconstruction algorithms, computer-aided diagnosis, visualization and modeling, imaging informatics, image perception and observer performance, ultrasonic imaging, image-guided procedures, robotic interventions, digital pathology, and biomedical applications in molecular, structural, and functional imaging. The fundamental and translational research and applications continue to yield physical and biomedical advancements in early detection, diagnostics, and therapy of disease.

The Journal of Medical Imaging will also have special sections, letters, book reviews, and highlights from the annual symposium.

The first special section to be published later this year will honor the late Robert F. Wagner, a pioneer in medical imaging and a founder of the SPIE Medical Imaging symposium. Guest editors are SPIE Fellow Kyle Myers and Weijie Chen from the US Food and Drug Administration, where Wagner spent most of his career.

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