The global burden of neuropsychiatric disorders presents an unprecedented and rapidly escalating challenge to public health worldwide. Current epidemiological evidence indicates that over 1 billion individuals are affected by a broad spectrum of neuropsychiatric conditions across the globe, with a striking heterogeneity in disease distribution: more than 300 million people suffer from depressive disorders, over 50 million from Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, 50 million from epilepsy, and millions more from autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, and anxiety disorders. At the same time, it is estimated that the number of global patients with Parkinson’s disease will reach 25.2 million by 2050[
1–
6]. According to the World Health Organization, neuropsychiatric disorders account for approximately 1 in 4 years lived with disability (YLDs) globally, and the annual mortality associated with these conditions, resulting from both direct disease progression and indirect consequences such as suicide, is substantial[
7]. Notably, the global number of people living with dementia is projected to increase from 57.4 million in 2019 to 152.8 million by 2050, largely owing to population growth and ageing. Meanwhile, the incidence of mental disorders among adolescents and young adults has risen markedly since 2019, with depressive and anxiety disorders accounting for a substantial proportion of the burden[
8–
9]. These opposing demographic pressures underscore the need for a life-course perspective that connects early neurodevelopmental vulnerability, adolescent brain-behavior trajectories, adult resilience and relapse, and later-life cognitive decline. Beyond these demographic shifts, the comorbidity of neuropsychiatric disorders with other chronic conditions further exacerbates disease burden and complicates clinical management[
10].
These sobering trends highlight the urgent need for integrated strategies encompassing early screening, mechanism-driven prevention, novel therapeutic targets, and personalized clinical care. Mechanism-driven prevention and early detection will increasingly depend on translational biomarkers that are clinically actionable across developmental stages, including neural signatures emerging from large-scale developmental cognitive neuroscience. Recent work mapping trajectories of structural brain asymmetry and data-driven anxiety-impulsivity behavioral subtypes in youth illustrates how developmental biomarkers may help bridge brain maturation, cognition, and psychiatric vulnerability[
11,
12]. Likewise, large-scale neuroimaging studies have begun to uncover shared neurodevelopmental morphometric risks and disorder-specific cortical alterations underlying early-onset internalizing, externalizing, and thought-disorder phenotypes, providing a powerful context for understanding adolescent brain-behavior interplays[
13,
14]. In response to these global challenges and the rapid advances in neuropsychiatric medicine, including breakthroughs in molecular mechanisms of brain disorders, innovative neuromodulatory therapies, precision pharmacology, and translational neuroscience, we are delighted to announce the launch of
Neuropsychiatric Research.
Neuropsychiatric Research is dedicated to publishing high-impact, peer-reviewed research that advances our understanding of the molecular, cellular, circuit-level, and systemic basis of neuropsychiatric disorders, while accelerating the translation of basic science discoveries into clinical practice for brain and mental health. Beyond reproducing the scope of existing high-impact psychiatry or neurology journals, the journal seeks to fill an editorial gap at the interface between neurological and psychiatric disorders and at that between developmental neuroscience and translational medicine. Its editorial philosophy is to prioritize mechanism-informed, clinically meaningful, and methodologically transparent research that connects biological mechanisms with diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, and treatment across the lifespan. The scope of the journal covers the full spectrum of neuropsychiatric medicine, including but not limited to fundamental neuroscience of brain function and dysfunction, genetic and epigenetic investigations of neuropsychiatric disorders, neuroinflammation and glial cell biology, advanced neuroimaging and neurophysiology, novel therapeutic approaches (e.g., neurostimulation, precision drugs, and cell and gene therapy), translational research bridging bench to bedside, lifespan trajectory studies, large-scale clinical trials, epidemiological and population-based studies, and digital neuropsychiatry. Within digital neuropsychiatry, the journal particularly encourages work on AI-assisted phenotyping, mobile and ecological momentary assessment, wearable and sensor-derived behavioral markers, digital therapeutics, computational psychiatry, and multimodal data integration for prediction and precision intervention. Consistent with modern open science standards, Neuropsychiatric Research supports prospective protocol registration, transparent reporting, reproducible analytic workflows, responsible data sharing, and the dissemination of large-scale open-access datasets whenever ethically and legally feasible. We welcome submissions of diverse article types, including Original Research Articles, Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses, Case Reports, Consensus Statements and Clinical Practice Guidelines, Letters to the Editor, Comments, Brief Reports, and Communications, all of which undergo rigorous scientific review to ensure academic excellence and clinical relevance.
Neuropsychiatric Research is supported by a distinguished international editorial board comprising leading experts in neuroscience, psychiatry, neurology, pharmacology, digital health, and translational medicine from across the globe. Our editorial board brings unparalleled expertise and a global vision, ensuring comprehensive scientific oversight, fair peer review, and the highest standards of academic rigor for all submitted work. Our core mission is to establish Neuropsychiatric Research as a leading international platform for neuropsychiatric research and innovation, fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration between basic scientists and clinicians, and promoting the exchange of cutting-edge knowledge across borders. We aim to empower researchers and clinicians worldwide to address the unmet medical needs of patients with neuropsychiatric disorders, and to reduce the global burden of brain and mental health conditions through impactful, high-quality research.
We warmly invite neuroscientists, psychiatrists, neurologists, pharmacologists, digital health researchers, computational scientists, and clinical researchers from all regions of the world to contribute their valuable work to Neuropsychiatric Research. Together, we can advance the frontiers of neuropsychiatric medicine, drive transformative discoveries for brain health, and improve the quality of life for hundreds of millions of individuals affected by neuropsychiatric disorders worldwide. Please visit the official website of Neuropsychiatric Research (journal.hep.com.cn/nr) for the latest information and submission guidelines.
The Author(s) 2026. This article is published by Higher Education Press at journal.hep.com.cn.
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