Clinical neuropsychology in perspective: future challenges based on current developments [Neuropsicologia clinica en perspectiva: Retos futuros basados en desarrollos presentes]

Introduction. New lines of translational, interdisciplinary research are emerging among different fields of the neurosciences, which often point at clinical neuropsychology as the hinge discipline capable of linking the basic findings with their clinical implications and thereby endow them with some meaning for phenomenological experience. Aim. To establish the great lines of progress made in the fields of neuroscience and neuropsychology in recent years, so as to be able to foresee the strategic lines and priorities of neuroscience in the near future. Development. To achieve this aim, the first step will be to identify the changes of paradigm that have taken place in the areas of neuroscience and psychology in the last two decades. The next step will be to propose new topics and fields of application that these changes in paradigm offer and demand from neuroscience. Conclusions. The false dichotomies of genes versus environment, mind versus brain, and reason versus emotion are considered, as are the new applications of neuropsychology to the understanding of psychopathological disorders, from the neurodegenerative to neurodevelopment, from dirty drugs to cognitive and affective enhancers.