The Journal of Neuroscience Nursing (JNN) has been the official journal of the American Association of Neuroscience Nurses (AANN; initially founded as the American Association of Neurosurgical Nurses) for the past 40 years. Through the years, many articles published in the journal have contributed to the everincreasing body of knowledge that has developed and advanced neuroscience nursing as a specialty practice area. It is this area that I have chosen to focus on and highlight in this second piece commemorating the 40th anniversary of AANN and JNN.

The first issue of JNN (known as the Journal of Neurosurgical Nursing until 1986) was published in 1969 (Fig 1). This inaugural issue contained proceedings and papers from AANN's first educational meeting, held in conjunction with the American Association of Neurological Surgeons in Cleveland, OH, April 13-17, 1969.

During the first 10 years of the development of the association and the journal, improving bedside care and learning about new technologies were some of the members' primary concerns. An important early publication was Pat Regan's article titled "An Educational Model for the Professional Nurse" (1972). This article exemplifies how nurses were beginning to shift their thinking and see themselves as professionals.

Cover of First Issue of

Learning about new technologies has been a clear theme throughout JNN's history. Some examples profiled in the journal include the introduction of microscopes into the operating room for neurosurgical procedures (Taylor, 1971); intracranial pressure monitoring (Hendrickson, 1987; Mitchell, 1986); administration of epidural morphine in lumbar surgery patients (Ozuna & Snyder, 1987); administration of intraventricular morphine via an Ommaya reservoir (Raney & Kirk, 1988); and carotid endarterectomy (Leonard, 1996). Neuroscience nurses have a long tradition of wanting to understand any new gizmos and gadgets (Bader, 2006), and more importantly, of using these new technologies to improve the care provided for patients and their families (Engil & Kirsivali-Farmer, 1993; Hendrickson; Mathis, 1984).

In the early years, it must have been a challenge to get enough material for publication-the journal was published only once that first inaugural year, and then four times a year from 1970 through the end of 1980. As the interactions of the subspecialties of nursing, medicine, and surgery increased, there was an explosion of knowledge, and the number of issues increased from four to six per year in 1981.

During the 1980s, Barbara Boss's articles provided many new nurses with an anatomical and pathophysiological basis as part of their neurological and neurosurgical content at nursing school or as required reading for their orientation as new nurses in neurological and neurosurgical units across the country. Boss enlightened many of us about the neurological basis of acute mood and behavior disturbances (Boss, 1982); the dementias (Boss, 1983); dysphasia, dyspraxia, and dysarthria (Boss, 1984a, 1984b); neuroanatomy (Boss & Stowe, 1986); the neuroanatomical and neurophysiological basis of learning (Boss, 1986); memory (Boss, 1988a); and syncope (Boss, 1988b).

It may be difficult for today's JNN readers to recall, but this group of nurses only began to identify themselves as neuroscience nurses during the 1980s. With the February 1986 issue, the Journal of Neurosurgical Nursing officially became the Journal of Neuroscience Nursing, helping to solidify this change in thinking in the nursing community.

From 1990 through 2000, during the Decade of the Brain,1JNN kept pace as care of stroke patients moved into the realm of critical care. Neuroscience nurses could learn about the correlative anatomy of stroke (Testani-Dufour & Morrison, 1997), pathophysiological mechanisms of stroke (Blank-Reid, 1996), development of an acute stroke unit (Hinkle, 1992), the introduction of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA; Macabasco & Hickman, 1995), redesigning stroke care (Dancer, 1996), measuring outcomes (Pasquarello, 1990), and depression following stroke (Hinkle, 1998). A solid nursing focus on patient assessment (Shephard & Fox, 1996) and interventions for patients (Hafsteinsdottir, 1996) and their families (Robinson-Smith & Mahoney, 1995) were constant underlying themes in JNN.

As we progress through the 2000s, the new buzz word is evidence-based practice, but neuroscience nurses already have a long track record of basing practice on research, much of which has been published first in JNN. Prime examples of evidence-based practice in the journal include the role delineation studies that have provided the research underpinnings for the Certified Neuroscience Registered Nurse (CNRN) examination from the 1980s (Nowin & Ozuna, 1988) up to the present (Blissitt, Roberts, Hinkle, & Kopp, 2003; Villanueva, Thompson, Macpherson, Meunier, & Hilton, 2006).

Some of the seminal articles and major themes published in JNN that underpin neuroscience nursing as a specialty practice have been highlighted. Space precludes the inclusion of the development of the many subspecialty areas within neuroscience nursing, and it is certain some important articles were overlooked. Although I sought input from fellow neuroscience nurses, the opinions expressed here are predominantly my own. However, I would like to encourage members, in this 40th year of publication of your journal, to let the editorial board know if you think other pieces published in JNN are meritorious and why. We welcome your valuable input!!

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