Summary

This series of articles presents the most current, updated information about how behavior is believed to be organized within the human brain (as of July 2014). A succinct description of the structure and function of large-scale brain systems (LSBS) has been provided. Our basic understanding of brain development was reviewed and modified to include these LSBS. The information base presented within these articles (although focused on applied child neuropsychology) is relevant to children and adults alike, across the life span. Localized and distributed information processing was described as not only a pattern of cortical organization, but as including the ‘‘bottom-up’’ support of subcortical structures and the vertical organization of the brain as well. These articles present a new framework for interpreting neuropsychological test data and offer proposals for developing new neuropsychological evaluation methodologies and testing procedures. The interested reader will likely find this series as a reference with which to work. Hopefully, this group of articles will stimulate and motivate the readership to further investigate LSBS and neuropsychological testing instruments to keep the field advancing and to further close the gap between clinical neuropsychology and the related neurosciences. Readers will have the opportunity to provide further important conceptual and empirical advances in the future. We would like to thank Ms. Elizabeth Kerr who made the publication of this series of articles possible. In fact, she played a critical role in publishing this series as quickly as possible so that the currency of the information presented could be maintained in this exponentially developing area. Because of her efforts, the readership can be reassured that the most current information has been presented. We hope the readership will use this series of articles as a sort of ‘‘telescope’’ for looking toward the future, so that clinical neuropsychology can meaningfully contribute to the better understanding of human brain–behavior relationships and the application of clinical neuropsychological assessment techniques to assist in the evaluation and treatment of clinical conditions.