Neuroscience Forum: Is It Worth Adding to PhysicsForums?

[Pythagorean]

looking at the number of neuroscience posts in medical, and having seen some in biology as well, I'm wondering if it's worth having a neuroscience forum yet? Also, noting the general increase in neuroscience interests from ALL science (and some engineering) fields outside of physicsforums and in the world at large.

edit/addendum:

Also, if there's some standard and quantitative reserach needs to be done on the neuroscience content of physicsforums before such a decision can be made, I'd be happy to provide the research if given the specific standards.

I think this is important since physicforums is critical about accuracy and no other forums meet that quality control standards and have the same volume of neuroscience posts.

 

[Evo]

We had the Mind/Brain forum, it was a dud and was deleted.

I see posts on psychiatric problems, dreaming, psychological problems, etc... which is what the Medical forum was created for

Medicine, Anatomy, Psychology, Neuroscience...

So there is already a forum for neuroscience topics.

 

[Pythagorean]

1) That's confusing (neuroscience is biology: medical is an application of both)
Which is why some people post neuroscience questions in the biology forum, as well.

2) Not all the questions on the first page of Medical, that are about neuroscience, are about medical. I noticed you selectively only picked the medical ones. Intentional or coincidence?

For balance here's some non-medical neuroscience posts on the FIRST page of Medical:

1) range and resolution of synaptic connections
2) Competitive/Adaptive Brain Plasticity… and you…
3) Why do endorphins feel good?
4) is "The brain That Changes Itself" the best book on neuroplasticity?
5) Electric field effects in tne brain
6) Dynamical Neuroscience (this one's mine, so you can remove it from the list if there's any question of bias)

Besides these, there are plenty more on the FIRST page that are ambiguous (could interpret either as applied/medical or theoretical) in addition to the one's you named.

I've made my case. Unless I see a silly argument, I will attest no further.

 

[Evo]

I didn't name individual threads, I named topics. And neuroscience belongs in Medical Sciences, so it already has a forum. All of the topics together warrant a forum, one topic does not.

I guess I don't see why threads on neuroscience don't belong in that forum.

 

[Monique]

Neuroscience topics might not only fit under Medical Sciences, but under Biology as well (when you are talking about the molecular/cell biology aspect of it).

How are you sure that the recent number of threads are not a hype that might wane?

 

[Pythagorean]

Neuroscience topics might not only fit under Medical Sciences, but under Biology as well (when you are talking about the molecular/cell biology aspect of it).

How are you sure that the recent number of threads are not a hype that might wane?

Of course, I don't expect a forum to be smacked in their immediately. I just think it's worth looking at and considering.

There's no guarantee the hype won't wain, but we can't deny that neuroscience (outside of physicsforums) has been picking up a lot of interest.

It has prompted Springer (the journal publisher) to make a forum themselves:
http://theneuronetwork.com/

However, there are no moderators there and anything goes :/

 

[loseyourname]

We explored this possibility years ago, or at least discussed it, due to the huge number of 'problem of consciousness' threads that kept popping up and getting dumped to philosophy even though they were really personal speculative theories closer to mysticism than either philosophy or science. Of course, something like that wouldn't have belonged in a neuroscience forum, either, but at least the existence of such a forum might have prompted people to be more rigorous about what they discussed instead of taking "philosophy" to mean "anything goes" rather than philosophy.

That is, it's easier to justify dumping clearly speculative nonsense from "Neuroscience" than it is from "Philosophy" because more people recognize that science has to be rigorous.

 

[Pythagorean]

That is, it's easier to justify dumping clearly speculative nonsense from "Neuroscience" than it is from "Philosophy" because more people recognize that science has to be rigorous.

That's my interest, more or less... with the added hope that it would attract more neuroscience experts to contribute to regulating the content.

 

[Moonbear]

That's my interest, more or less... with the added hope that it would attract more neuroscience experts to contribute to regulating the content.

We had a burst of interest in neuroscience topics for a while, which was why the Mind and Brain forum was created. I wouldn't say it was a total flop, but the neuroscientists mostly got busy with doing science and wandered off, leaving mostly just the philosophers.

Because of the amount of posts on neuroscience topics, at the time the forum was changed to a more general med science forum, the old topics weren't all moved out to better homes. So, that sometimes leads to some of the confusion with people perusing old topics, seeing a lot of the old mind and brain posts and thinking that's still the right forum for them.

There is some natural overlap between biology and med sciences, but generally, if you want to discuss the more clinically applied topics, med sciences is the right fit. If you're more interested in the basic science mechanisms, the biology forum is better. If you're discussing some translational research topic that bridges both, pick one and if Monique has a strong feeling about which forum it's in, I'm sure she'll move it. All of our forums have gray areas of topics that can fit more than one, and it's usually not a big deal to just choose one. It's not like posting a joke thread in the middle of one of the math forums where it's clearly off-topic.

 

[Pythagorean]

Ok, so if you're discussion is about theoretical neuroscience, for instance (which is neuroscience and psychology, but not necessarily clinical) then it would generally go in the biology subforum, but since the medical forum is (mis?)labeled neuroscience and psychology, people tend to post those kinds of discussion there instead?

 

[Evo]

Ok, so if you're discussion is about theoretical neuroscience, for instance (which is neuroscience and psychology, but not necessarily clinical) then it would generally go in the biology subforum, but since the medical forum is (mis?)labeled neuroscience and psychology, people tend to post those kinds of discussion there instead?

It doesn't really matter, the thread would be acceptable in either.