The History of Neurochemistry as Revealed by the Journal of Neurochemistry

Analyses of samples of articles in the Journal of Neurochemistry between 1956 (the year of its foundation) and 1990 were used to obtain numerical indices of the history of neurochemistry. Data suggest that the acceleration of neurochemical research did not merely reflect the increase of biochemical research in general and that it involved progressive decreases and increases of interest in major constituents and transmitters, respectively, as indicated by both numbers and citations of papers. Papers on all classes of transmitters increased steadily and in the order of amines > amino acids, acetylcholine > peptides. Within the field of brain metabolism, papers on energy metabolism decreased markedly. Use of techniques other than those of biochemistry/neurochemistry altered strikingly with decreases of histological, electrophysiological, and pharmacological methods and increases of chemical, immunological, and tissue culture methods. Citations by neuroscience core journals between 1975 and 1988 suggest that the relative prominence of neurochemistry within neuroscience has remained constant. Analyses indicate that the influence of the U.S.A. relative to that of other regions has remained fairly steady between 1956 and 1990, but that number of papers from the U.K. has declined, whereas the influences of Western Europe and other areas appear to have recently increased substantially. Sociological changes have been the virtual disappearance of single-author papers, an increase of multiauthorship (> 3), and a recent striking increase of assertive sentence titles.