The multiple meanings of "neuro" in neuropsychology.

Cortex was founded in 1964 by Ennio De Renzi. As such it is one of the oldest journals of Neuropsychology, launched at the turning point in the history of the field (see De Renzi, 2001; Cubelli, 2005). According to the blurb presenting it, ‘‘Cortex is an international journal devoted to thestudy of cognition and of the relationship between the nervous system and mental processes, particularly as these are reflected in the behaviour of patients with acquired brain lesions, normal volunteers, children with typical and atypical development, and in the activation of brain regions and systems as recorded by functional neuroimaging techniques’’. That is, Neuropsychology, as the composition of the termimplies, is typicallyaninterdisciplinary endeavour, which serves as a bridge between different levels of analysis and fills the gap between other disciplines, like the cognitive sciences and the neurosciences (Newcombe, 1980). The nature of such a multidisciplinary, or better yet ‘‘superdisciplinary’’, approach is well exemplified by Lecours et al. (1983) in their description of aphasia research: ‘‘The interaction of speech pathology, neurology, psychology, computer science and linguistics has led to more elaborate research on remedial programmes and techniques. This converging of different disciplines has also led to an accumulation of data, approaches, techniques and scientific methods which constitute the field of endeavour known as aphasiology.’’ (p. 3). The same applies to all the domains covered by the term ‘‘neuropsychology’’. The prefix ‘‘neuro’’ is currently a hype word to denote a range of fashionable topics in non-psychological domains, encompassing among others neuroethics, neuroaestethics, neuromarketing, neurotheology, neuroeconomics and neuropsychoanalysis (for a critical appraisal see Legrenzi and Umilta’, 2009). But what does ‘‘neuro’’ stand for? In our view it has a multifarious meaning. On the one hand, ‘‘neuro’’ identifies the object under investigation, i.e., as Cortex