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Welcome to issue 2 of volume 16, the second with our new publisher! The robust online presence of Taylor & Francis gives more visibility to the vibrant interdisciplinary space of neuropsychoanalysis, and we welcome our new readers. In this issue, you will see numerous areas being explored in our dialogue between psychoanalysis and the neurosciences, with implications for our understanding of the fundamental organization of the mind and brain and for enriching and charting new directions for mental health practice.
The pieces in this issue demonstrate the diversity of topics currently being explored in neuropsychoanalysis, and of the methods to explore those topics. In the Original Articles section, Aylin Thiel and colleagues provide a terrific example of psychodynamic neuroscience in their functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), opening a new line of inquiry by testing a fundamental psychoanalytic concept about the role of conflicts over sexual and aggressive impulses in the disorder. They find different patterns of brain activity in response to sexual, aggressive, and disgusting stimuli in people with OCD, supporting a more nuanced picture of the underlying mechanisms which may provide clinicians with new ground in treating this disorder. Asher Wilner and Michael Aube present a version of the clinico-anatomical method in their detailed case of a young woman with NMDA receptor encephalitis who demonstrated an apparent loss of many higher ego functions while preserving primary consciousness, in the context of an apparent regression to a much younger level of mental and motor functioning. They make a number of observations about id and ego function in relation to the role of NMDA receptors. Finally, Baland Jalal, Bonnie Settlage, and Vilyanur Ramachandran take on the important question of the status of psychoanalysis within the sciences, offering a useful philosophical context within which to read the other papers in t