Missions of <italic>Journal of Movement Disorders</italic>

Abstract

Rapid advances in communication and information technologies have made available the clinical data of diverse ethnic and cultural populations around the world, lending them clinical relevance in neurology practice. Despite the growing need to understand clinical and epidemiological differences among various populations, competition among journals to increase citation and impact factor has hindered the publication of diverse regional data, which usually lags behind the publication of novel findings. As its aim and scope, the Journal of Movement Disorders is interested in publishing clinical studies of Parkinson’s disease and other movement and neurodegenerative disorders in Asian-Oceanian populations. It is our mission to serve as a platform to broaden the knowledge of these fields and to enhance patient care by sharing clinical and epidemiological data from various regions with the global health care community. An article reporting the genotypes and phenotypes of Korean patients affected by neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation (NBIA), published in the current issue, is of interest in this regard. NBIA is a group of inherited disorders that share clinical features such as extrapyramidal movement disorders, varying degrees of intellectual disability, and abnormal iron deposition in the basal ganglia [1]. At present, causative genes for ten forms of NBIA have been identified. Lee et al. [2] analyzed genetically confirmed cases of NBIA from 12 referral hospitals in Korea and reported clinical findings for patients with atypical pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration (PKAN). The data of Korean patients with atypical PKAN differ from those of the Caucasian population in terms of clinical manifestations and mutation hot spots. These researchers found considerable phenotypic heterogeneity ranging from isolated freezing of the gait to generalized dystonia with concurrent parkinsonism. The age of onset tended to affect the presentation of extrapyramidal symptoms in atypical PKAN. Translational research transfers knowledge from basic research to clinical research, and transfers findings from clinical studies or clinical trials to practice settings and communities, with the goal of improving health [3]. In this issue, Journal of Movement Disorders is launching a new section entitled “Translational Research Review”. This section will cover current translational research on interesting topics in Parkinson’s disease and neurodegenerative disorders. Diverse new disciplines in clinical neurology and neuroscience such as molecular neuroimaging, magnetic resonance imaging techniques, bioinformatics, and systems biology will also be covered. In this issue, Lee and Lee [4] provide an article entitled “The mechanism of anti-α-synuclein immunotherapy”. This article provides up-to-date information regarding our pathogenic and therapeutic understanding of α-synuclein. Over the past two years, the editorial team at Journal of Movement Disorders has tried improve the quality and stature of the publication. One of our missions is to make our articles readily available worldwide free of charge. Pursuing this mission has been expedited by indexing the Journal of Movement Disorders in PubMed Central. As a result, the citation of articles published in our journal has been on the rise. Moreover, our policy of maintaining an open access journal without article processing fees or page charges will facilitate the dissemination of knowledge published in the Journal of Movement Disorders. Our efforts to index the Journal of Movement Disorders in other journal databases, such as SCOPUS and Web of Science, are ongoing. We would like to thank our sponsoring organization, the Korean Movement Disorders Society, for providing financial support to continue pursuing our mission. We hope that readers of the Journal of Movement Disorders find our articles informative and valuable.