Behavioral and Brain Sciences is a peer-reviewed

Peer review

Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...

 scientific journal

Scientific journal

In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...

 of Open Peer Commentary

Open Peer Commentary

Open peer commentary consists of eliciting non-anonymous commentary on a peer-reviewed "target article" from a dozen or more specialists across disciplines, co-published with the author's response. It was first implemented by the anthropologist Sol Tax, who founded the journal Current...

 founded in 1978 by Stevan Harnad

Stevan Harnad

Stevan Harnad is a cognitive scientist.- Career :Harnad was born in Budapest, Hungary. He did his undergraduate work at McGill University and his graduate work at Princeton University's Department of Psychology...

 and published by Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...

. It is modeled on the journal Current Anthropology

Current Anthropology

Current Anthropology is a peer-reviewed anthropology academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press and sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Founded in 1959 by the anthropologist Sol Tax...

(which was founded in 1959 by the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 anthropologist, Sol Tax

Sol Tax

Sol Tax was an American anthropologist. He is best known for his studies of the Meskwaki, or Fox, Indians, for "action-anthropological" research titled the Fox Project, and for founding the academic journal Current Anthropology. He received his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1935.Tax...

).

The journal publishes "target articles" followed by 10 to 30 or more peer commentaries and the authors' response. The journal covers all area of the biobehavioral and cognitive science

Cognitive science

Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...

s (psychology, neuroscience, behavioral biology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

, linguistics, philosophy) and articles are judged by four or more referees to be of sufficient importance and interdisciplinary scope to merit Open Peer Commentary. Volume 1 appeared in 1978 and issues appeared quarterly; as its popularity grew it switched to a bimonthly schedule in 1997. The journal is included in the major indexes Current Contents, Sociological Abstracts, Brain Information Service, Psychological Abstracts, Animal Behaviour

Ethology

Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior, and a sub-topic of zoology....

 Abstracts, Neurosciences Abstracts, Science Citation Index

Science Citation Index

The Science Citation Index is a citation index originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information and created by Eugene Garfield in 1960, which is now owned by Thomson Reuters. The larger version covers more than 6,500 notable and significant journals, across 150 disciplines, from ...

, Social Sciences Citation Index

Social Sciences Citation Index

Social Sciences Citation Index is an interdisciplinary citation index product of Thomson Reuters' Healthcare & Science division. It was developed by the Institute for Scientific Information from the Science Citation Index....

, Excerpta Medica, Current Awareness in Biological Sciences

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

, Current Anthropology, Biological Abstracts, and EMBASE

EMBASE

Embase is an online information source of published literature designed to supportinformation managers and pharmacovigilance in complying with the regulatoryrequirements of a licensed drug. Through its unique and comprehensive content coverage,...

. According to the 2010 edition of the Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports is an annual publication by the Healthcare & Science division of Thomson Reuters. It has been integrated with the Web of Knowledge, by Thomson Reuters, and is accessed from the Web of Science to JCR Web. It provides information about academic journals in the sciences and...

, its 2009 impact factor

Impact factor

The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed...

 is 19.045. This ranks the journal first and third in the two categories in which it is listed, Behavioral Sciences

Behavioural sciences

The term behavioural sciences encompasses all the disciplines that explore the activities of and interactions among organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behaviour through controlled and naturalistic observation, and disciplined...

 and Neuroscience

Neuroscience

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...

s, respectively.