I disagree hypnogogue. We don't have enough neuroscientists to sustain the Mind and Brain forum in its current format, so it has mostly just been an extension of philosophy. From looking at the questions people ask, it seems there's much more of a need for people to understand the medical sciences. Biology can still cover the topics that go beyond the scope of medical sciences. Many of the basic neuroscience questions really do best fit under biology, such as "How is an action potential propagated?" etc., whereas there are medical questions that span a great variety of fields and don't easily fit within any current subforum. For example, something like, "I was told I need an MRI, how does that work and what sort of information will it provide about..." Such a question requires both biology and physics to adequately answer. Another example are the questions we get about pharmaceuticals and their actions. Those require chemistry and biology to answer. I think this change also makes it a bit more clear cut where the divisions are between the various forums. For example, when someone has a pure psychology question, do they post it in the social sciences forum or Mind and Brain? There's too much overlap and no clear division of why one would choose one forum over another. It makes Mind & Brain redundant.
Specializing the forum to address medical sciences questions provides a clearer delineation of where a question belongs. If it's a basic science question, place it in biology, chemistry, or social sciences. If it pertains to health or medicine, place it in the medical sciences forum. For example, a question about the cellular mechanisms of neurite outgrowth belongs in biology, a question about a psychology study on decision-making would go in social sciences, while a question about what happens in the progression of Alzheimer disease, including the behavioral changes, the neural changes, other related health issues, support options for caregivers, whether any treatments or lifestyle modifications will slow or halt progression of the disease, etc., would fit within medical sciences.
Right now, a lot of the medical type questions land in GD and don't get very serious responses, and as much as I loved the idea of Mind and Brain originally, we just don't have a membership under which it is fluorishing, and it hasn't drawn in any new membership to help it grow either.
I think providing solid science-based answers about medical questions is more useful for the general public as well. There are a lot of sites that provide very basic clinical information, such as signs and symptoms of various diseases, what sort of treatments are available, and emotional support for sufferers of the diseases and those close to them, but very few where the actual science behind the diseases, the ongoing research about them (people often don't see the connection between a lot of basic science research and the ultimate goal of improving medical care, including how the basic science knowledge can provide information on novel drug targets), and in an environment where scientists can provide the explanations and interpretations of the research to the non-scientific public. I see a lot of disconnection between efforts to make research articles available to the general public and their actual ability to understand what is written in those articles. They are written by scientists for scientists, and are not understandable by the general public. On the other hand, the pre-digested versions and news articles often contain inaccuracies, or hype findings as bigger than they are, and there's nobody around to explain how the science is really working or what it really means. This is something we can do that other sites don't offer...a place for the scientists to help explain to non-scientists what all those studies they now have access to mean, and to help put it in context of the greater body of literature they don't have time to read and understand on their own.
That was my first concern with such a name change. We're still not providing diagnoses; it's going to still be very much focused on the science side of things.
