Focus and Scope
Journal of Neurology Research is an open access, peer-reviewed, international journal. All submissions relating to basic research and clinical practice of neurology and neurosurgery are in this journal's scope. This journal focuses on publishing original research and observations in all neurology aspects and translational neurology. Manuscript types include original article, review, case report, short communication, book review, letter to the editor.
Peer Review Process
The peer-review process and editorial scrutiny are the main mechanisms for ensuring the quality of published articles. To this end, the submitted articles are rigorously peer-reviewed to ensure the high quality submissions are accepted and published; these published articles reflect the up-to-date research findings, with reliable and sound results, objective and unbiased discussion of the results. The journal’s editorial board is composed of research scientists and medical specialists with rich research and publication experiences.
The most important criterion for acceptance is the originality of the work. Other factors may affect decisions, such factors are, but not limited to, the extent and importance of new information in the paper compared with that in other papers being considered, the Journal's need to represent a wide range of topics, and the overall suitability for this journal. Decisions on peer-reviewed papers are sent to the authors within an average of 3 weeks from the date of submission.
Peer-review procedures
- Manuscript submitted via the journal online submission system, then a manuscript No. is assigned.
- Primary manuscript check by the editorial assistant against the submission Checklist, to check if components of manuscript are complete and conforming to the submission requirements, whether there is issue of duplicate submission, plagiarism, and other concerns. If manuscript does not meet the submission requirements, the manuscript will be returned to the authors for corrections and resubmission, or even rejected for ethical violation concerns.
- When the submitted manuscript is complete, it will be reviewed first by the Editor-in-Chief for novelty, scientific importance, and relevance to the journal’s general readership.
- If the manuscript is found lacking sufficient quality or the topic is not well within the journal scope, or is very poorly written, lack of suitable English language correctness and readability, without sufficient research creative novelty, or any other serious ethical issues, the manuscript will be rejected outright promptly without further consideration and review (a “desk rejectâ€).
- Manuscript that passes the initial screening will be sent to and reviewed by peer reviewers.
- Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two external expert reviewers who will provide unbiased, critical and independent assessment of the submission; Reviewers are asked to complete the review within the assigned time (usually 2 weeks). The peer reviewers’ comments will be sent to the Editor-in-Chief, who will decide whether to accept with/without revision, or reject the submission. The corresponding/submitting author is notified of the editorial decision.
- Manuscripts which are returned to the authors for minor or major revisions should be resubmitted within assigned deadline. If necessary, the revised manuscripts are reassessed by the same reviewers to determine if the authors have satisfactorily addressed their criticisms and comments. Depending upon the reevaluation, the Editor-in-Chief will make the final decision.
- The above review process may be repeated (one or more times) if a manuscript revision (major or minor) is requested.
- The peer-review process is single blinded with the reviewers aware of whom the authors of the manuscript are, the authors do not know who the reviewers are.
- All manuscripts are treated by the editorial staff, editors and assigned reviewers as privileged and confidential information. Reviewers’ comments are not published. The reviewers’ identity remains anonymous. The manuscripts under review are not revealed to anyone other than the peer reviewers and editorial staff.
Reviewer conflict of interest
Conflict of interest (COI) self-assessment must be performed by members of the editorial team and external peer reviewers involved in the assessment of manuscripts. Common examples of COI include situations where there is financial gain, or when authors who are collaborating, directly competing, or are members of the same institution are reviewing each other’s work. To some extent, especially within highly subspecialized fields, some degree of conflict of interest may be difficult to avoid.
Editors and reviewers will be asked to provide a COI statement when reviewing articles addressing the following questions:
1.   Is there any financial gain that may result from your review of this work? (Yes or No)
2.   Currently or in the last 2 years, is there an existing relationship with any of the manuscript authors such as shared grant support, shared publications, or collaborative projects? (Yes or No)
3.   Currently or in the last 2 years, do you share institutional or other affiliations with any of the authors that may affect your judgement of this work? (Yes or No)
4.   Do you have (currently or in the past) a personal or family relationship with any of the authors that may result in a conflict or a perceived conflict of interest? (Yes or No)
If the answer to any of these statements is “Yes†the editor or reviewer should recuse themselves from the review of the manuscript and the article will be assigned to a different editor or reviewer.
Submissions from members of the editorial board
Members of the editorial board are permitted to submit articles for consideration by the journal. In order to minimize the possibility of COI, the managing editor for the submission will be a member of the editorial board who is from a different institution. The editor submitting the article will not be included in editorial discussions, the peer review process, or decisions regarding the manuscript. For purposes of the submission, they will receive the same treatment as any other author who submits work to the journal.
Similarly, article submissions from the editor in chief will be handled by a member of the editorial board from a different institution, who will oversee the editorial process and peer review. The editor in chief will not be permitted to participate in the editorial process and final decision regarding the manuscript will be made by the managing editor.
As above, determining the editorial team members and peer reviewers who are best positioned to assess the manuscript, will be guided by the above-mentioned COI self-assessment.
Publication Frequency
Biannually in print and online, articles may be published online first ahead of print.
Open Access Policy
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.
Elmer Press publishes articles under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Creative Commons Attribution license (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International CC-BY-NC 4.0).
Archiving
Journal archiving and digital preservation:Â Portico
This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...
Open Submissions
Peer Reviewed