About Human Brain

Human Brain

Overview

Human Brain is a quarterly open-access journal published by Higher Education Press in Beijing and hosted on the HEP Journals platform. The journal was formally established at its first editorial board meeting, held on 25 October 2025 at Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing, and its first articles appeared on the HEP platform in 2026. Dedicated to advancing brain science research and building a reputable international platform for neuroscience, Human Brain is edited by two of China's leading figures in human brain research at Peking Union Medical College — Professor Chao Ma and Professor Yi-Cheng Zhu. Its very title states its distinguishing focus: the human brain itself, studied directly through human anatomy, brain banking, imaging and clinical neuroscience, at a leading Chinese medical institution with a long record in the field.

Founding: The Editorial Board Meeting of 25 October 2025

The journal's formal establishment is precisely documented. On 25 October 2025 the editorial board meeting of Human Brain was held at Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing, chaired by Professor Chao Ma as Editor-in-Chief. At the meeting it was officially announced that Human Brain is published by Higher Education Press and hosted on the HEP Journals platform, and that the journal will be published quarterly under an open-access model. Huabing Yang, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Higher Education Press, delivered a welcome speech expressing gratitude to the editorial team for its trust in HEP and reaffirming the publisher's commitment to supporting the development of high-quality academic journals. Yang then presented certificates of appointment to Chao Ma and Yi-Cheng Zhu as Editors-in-Chief, and the two editors in turn awarded certificates to the editorial board members, marking the formal establishment of the journal's editorial board. At the same meeting the journal's official website and submission system were launched.

Publisher: Higher Education Press

Higher Education Press (HEP) is one of China's leading educational and academic publishers, owned by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China and headquartered in Beijing, and ranked among the world's top fifty publishers. Its English-language journal programme is long established: the HEP Frontiers Journals series, launched in 2006, is an English academic journal series covering natural sciences, engineering, life sciences, and social sciences and humanities, built in partnership with leading universities and research institutions in China and abroad; its Engineering title is co-published with the Chinese Academy of Engineering. At the Human Brain founding meeting, HEP senior editor Zi Wang presented the press's standardised service process for new journals, outlining the progress and workflow of Human Brain during its establishment phase. Human Brain thus joins a mature journal platform rather than standing alone — it is part of Higher Education Press's continuing programme of new English-language journals in frontier fields, and it benefits from the press's established production, platform and international distribution experience.

Editor-in-Chief Chao Ma: Anatomy and Human Brain Banking

Professor Chao Ma, who chaired the founding meeting and introduced the vision and mission behind the launch of Human Brain, is based at Peking Union Medical College, in the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the Department of Human Anatomy, Histology and Embryology of the School of Basic Medicine. His research identity is closely tied to the direct study of the human brain: he has been a central figure in the development of human brain banking in China, the discipline that collects, preserves and distributes human brain tissue for research, and in the China Human Brain Bank Consortium that coordinates that work nationally. In the founding presentations he emphasised the journal's dedication to advancing brain science research. An editor whose career is built on human brain tissue and anatomy gives the journal an anchor in the material study of the human organ — a counterweight to neuroscience's reliance on animal models and indirect imaging measures.

Editor-in-Chief Yi-Cheng Zhu: Clinical Neuroscience at Peking Union

The second Editor-in-Chief, Professor Yi-Cheng Zhu, is based in the Department of Neurology at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, one of China's most prestigious teaching hospitals. At the founding meeting, Zhu acknowledged the challenges of launching a new journal but expressed confidence in building a reputable international platform for neuroscience research. The pairing of the two editors is the journal's defining structural feature: a basic-medical-scientist specialising in human anatomy and brain banking on one side, and a clinical neurologist in a major hospital department on the other. Together they span the two settings in which the human brain can be studied directly — the laboratory and brain bank, and the clinic and imaging suite — and they position Human Brain to handle submissions from both, with editorial judgement grounded in each.

A Journal Focused on the Human Brain Itself

The journal's name is a statement of scope. Much of modern neuroscience is conducted in model organisms, cell systems and computational models, and then extrapolated to humans with varying confidence. A journal titled Human Brain signals priority for research conducted on, or directly about, the human organ: human neuroanatomy and brain banking, human neuroimaging, human genetics and neuropathology, and clinical neuroscience in human patients. That focus aligns the journal with the research programmes of its home institutions — Peking Union Medical College's basic medical sciences and its hospital's neurology service — and with the editors' own published work on human brain banking and on bringing neuroscience advances from the use of human brain resources into wider research practice. For researchers whose work depends on scarce human material and human data, a journal that treats that material as central, rather than as a translational afterthought, fills a recognisable niche.

Publication Model: Quarterly and Open Access on the HEP Platform

Human Brain is published quarterly with an open-access model, hosted on the HEP Journals platform at journal.hep.com.cn/hb, with manuscript submission through the Manuscript Central system at mc.manuscriptcentral.com/humanbrain — the same online journal management system Higher Education Press has used for its Frontiers journal series to handle submission, peer review, tracking and editorial control. Open access is a deliberate choice for a journal seeking international visibility from launch: every article is free to read worldwide immediately on publication, maximising the reach of a new title that cannot yet rely on subscription bundles or a legacy readership. The quarterly rhythm suits a specialist journal building its submission base, allowing each issue to be curated as a coherent statement of the journal's scope while its first volumes establish its reputation.

Brain Science in China and the Journal's Context

Human Brain appears during a period of major national investment in brain science. China has built national capacity in human brain banking through the China Human Brain Bank Consortium, developed large-scale brain imaging and brain-disorder research programmes, and made brain science and brain-inspired intelligence a strategic research priority. Peking Union Medical College and its hospital, the journal's home, stand near the centre of that effort in Beijing, combining basic medical research, clinical neurology and stewardship of human brain resources. A dedicated English-language journal gives that community an international platform of its own: Chinese human-brain research has historically been published in Western neuroscience titles, and Human Brain offers its authors a home journal with international open-access reach, while offering international researchers a direct window onto Chinese brain science.

The Founding Team and the Act of Establishment

The documented details of the founding meeting show a journal established with unusual formality and institutional commitment. Appointment certificates were presented by the publisher's Deputy Editor-in-Chief to the two Editors-in-Chief, and by the editors to the board members, in a ceremony recorded and reported on the HEP Journals platform. The publisher presented its standardised new-journal service process at the same meeting, indicating that Human Brain was launched through a defined institutional pipeline — editorial appointment, platform setup, website and submission-system launch, and first articles following in 2026 — rather than as an informal initiative. For authors considering a new journal, such visible backing from a major national publisher and a leading medical college is material evidence about the seriousness and durability of the venture.

Outlook

Human Brain begins its run with assets that many new journals lack: two Editors-in-Chief whose own careers define its human-brain focus, one from anatomy and brain banking and one from clinical neurology; the backing of Higher Education Press, a Ministry of Education publisher with a two-decade English journal programme; a defined quarterly open-access model on an established platform; and a clear niche in the direct study of the human brain. Its first articles appeared in 2026, and its reputation will now be built issue by issue. For researchers in human neuroanatomy, brain banking, neuroimaging, neuropathology and clinical neuroscience, it offers a new international platform whose name, leadership and home institution all point the same way: towards the human brain itself.