Updated December 2018
Types of Articles
Research Articles
eNeuro publishes research papers that contribute to the field of neuroscience by expanding knowledge in areas of fundamental importance: Development, Neuronal Excitability, Sensory and Motor Systems, Integrative Systems, Cognition and Behavior, Novel Tools and Methods, Disorders of the Nervous System, and History, Teaching, and Public Awareness. eNeuro accepts standard and new research manuscripts in the following areas:
- New Research: Research articles that contribute to neuroscience literature by expanding knowledge in areas of fundamental importance.
- Expanding knowledge: Research articles that contribute to neuroscience literature by expanding knowledge in areas of fundamental importance.
- Failure to replicate: Research from authors who could not reproduce someone else’s work of significant importance despite using the same methodology and experimental conditions (explaining why the reproduction failed is not mandatory). There are many reasons why something cannot be exactly replicated because we can’t control all parameters such as a genetic shift, modified antibody, for example. The Methods section needs to include the details and not just reference another paper.
- Methods/New Tools: Research papers that are well documented discussing new methods and tools useful to the scientific community.
- Theory/New Concepts: Research papers that are not necessarily based on experimental data and that question existing dogma.
- Negative Results: Research papers from authors who tried to test important hypotheses but did not get the outcome they expected. Failed preclinical tests are particularly welcome. These manuscripts must include testing the hypothesis by multiple experimental approaches, rigorously reproducing the experimental models of others that you claim to refute, and meticulous use of both positive and negative controls.
- Confirmation: Research papers from authors confirming they replicated someone else’s work of significant importance and extended it.
Registered Reports
Registered Reports are a form of empirical article in which the methods and proposed analyses are pre-registered and reviewed prior to research being conducted. High quality protocols are then provisionally accepted for publication before data collection commences. This format is designed to minimize bias in deductive science, while also allowing the flexibility to conduct exploratory (unregistered) analyses and report serendipitous findings.
See Registered Reports: Guidelines for Authors [PDF] for more information.
Feature Articles
- Research Highlights: Articles written by the Features Editor about recently published research in eNeuro. Aimed at a broad scientific audience, the research highlight places the new findings within the context of current scientific knowledge in the particular area of neuroscience to which the research relates. The research highlight also discusses future, real-world implications of the findings. The selection for the highlight is guided by reviewers’ and editors’ comments about its likely impact on the neuroscience community. The senior author of the research highlighted will have the opportunity to review the feature article prior to its publication.
Reviews
Reviews provide timely, comprehensive, and conceptual advances and integration of a field or topic. They are peer-reviewed articles and follow the same guidelines as research papers. There is no size limit.
Societal Impact
Societal impact papers discuss and analyze the social and ethical aspects of research. Authors should make a presubmission inquiry to the editor-in-chief if they wish to provide an article in this section.
History of Neuroscience
History of Neuroscience papers present how major discoveries were made, how a field evolved over time, the history of great neuroscientists, etc. Authors should make a pre-submission inquiry to the editor-in-chief if they wish to provide an article in this section.
Commentaries
Commentaries are short articles (1-2 pages) that discuss any published article or issues of special interest. They must contain a critique of the importance of the research that is undertaken or provide an alternative view or improve on an idea or a theory. Authors should make a pre submission inquiry to the editor-in-chief if they wish to provide an article in this section.
Opinions
Opinions are short articles (2-4 pages) that present new ideas or discuss the state of a given research field.
Post-Publication Commentary (or Letters to the Editor)
Responses to articles may be submitted online via the “Respond to this article” link in the right sidebar of an article’s Web page.
Article responses allow readers to comment on the content of articles published in eNeuro. The goal is to facilitate open exchanges on science published in eNeuro. See Letters to the Editor for more information.
Invited Articles
eNeuro publishes a variety of invited articles including review articles, opinions, and commentaries at the invitation of the editorial board. Invited articles are peer reviewed and follow the same guidelines as research articles.
Policies
In submitting a manuscript to eNeuro, all authors must agree to abide by all relevant SfN policies,including its Guidelines for Responsible Conduct Regarding Scientific Communication. Manuscripts with multiple authors are reviewed with the explicit understanding that all authors have seen and approve of the submitted version and agree to abide by the Society’s policies.
eNeuro recognizes its responsibility to ensure that questions of scientific misconduct or dishonesty in research are adequately pursued. Should scientific misconduct or dishonesty be suspected or alleged, eNeuro follows the recommended procedures outlined by COPE when dealing with allegations of misconduct.
Policy on Ethics
Authors submitting papers to eNeuro must have conducted their work in strict accordance with the Society’s Policy on Ethics. SfN follows the recommended procedure outlined by COPE when dealing with allegations of misconduct. In cases of authorship dispute after acceptance, eNeuro does not get involved and instead directs authors to follow the COPE guidelines outlined here. Modifications to authorship will only be made if all authors provide written agreement.
Policies on the Use of Animals and Humans in Neuroscience Research
All animal experimentation reported in eNeuro must have been conducted in accordance with the Society’s Policies on the Use of Animals and Humans in Neuroscience Research.
Policy on Prepublication
eNeuro generally does not consider manuscripts that have been previously published. Posting to a preprint server such as bioRxiv, ArXiv, Open Science Framework, etc. are not considered prior publication. Authors who have posted to bioRxiv and Authorea have the option to transfer their files directly for consideration by eNeuro. Posting a manuscript to a preprint server while under consideration for eNeurois allowed up until the point of acceptance. Abstracts, theses, posters, or manuscripts that have been posted on the Internet for the purpose of receiving commentary from the community are not considered prior publication. Online posting is typically done at a prepublication repository that has been designed for the purpose, but posting on an institutional website or other Internet location is acceptable. Articles submitted from a preprint server should comply with submission guidelines for a double-blind process as described here. Please contact eNeuro@sfn.org before submitting if you are uncertain that your manuscript meets the criteria for a double-blind review.
It is essential that the authors retain the copyright for any pre-published material that they submit to eNeuro, and that they are willing and able to relinquish to eNeuro any copyrights and/or licenses that eNeuro requires for publication of accepted manuscripts. Authors should realize that other journals might not consider pre-published material and that prepublication will restrict their alternatives when a manuscript is not accepted by eNeuro.
Policy on Molecular Data
eNeuro subscribes to the policies of The Journal of Biological Chemistry on protein and nucleic acid sequences and genomic and proteomic data, which it modifies as follows:
Protein and nucleic acid sequences: Newly determined nucleotide or protein sequences must be deposited in GenBank, EMBL, or the DNA Databank of Japan. Accession numbers must be reported in the manuscript and data must be available upon acceptance and publication of the manuscript. No data are to be withdrawn following publication.
Genomic and proteomic data: Authors of papers that include functional genomics data such as microarray, ChIP seq, RNA-seq, or other high-throughput data are required to deposit the data in a MIAME-compliant database such as GEO, ArrayExpress, or CYBEX and to provide accession numbers. Data must be publicly accessible upon acceptance and publication of the manuscript. No data are to be withdrawn following publication.
Authors of papers that include proteomics data should comply with the guidelines developed by Molecular and Cellular Proteomics [PDF].
Policy on Computer Code and Software
Computational models: New computational neuroscience computer code must be included with the initial submission as Extended Data to ensure reproducibility if published and be deposited in a suitable repository such as GitHub, ModelDB, BioModels, CellML, or Visiome. Studies using custom code deemed central to the conclusions must include a statement in the Materials and Methods section, under the heading “Code Accessibility”, indicating whether and how the code can be accessed, including any accession numbers or restrictions and be cited in the references. The type of computer and the operating system used to run the code in the manuscript must be included in the Materials and Methods section. Code must be available upon acceptance and publication of the manuscript. No code is to be withdrawn following publication. Code files must be packaged in a single ZIP file.
Software: If new software or a new algorithm is used for data analysis, authors are encouraged to include the software or algorithm with the submission as Extended Data and deposit it in an appropriate public repository. A statement needs to be included in the Materials and Methods section, under the heading “Software Accessibility”, indicating whether and how the software or algorithm can be accessed, including any accession numbers or restrictions. Software files must be packaged in a single ZIP file.
Policy on Image Manipulation
eNeuro subscribes to the policy of The Journal of Cell Biology on image manipulation, which it modifies as follows.
Original data: Editors reserve the right to request any original data from authors at any stage in the submission, review, or publication process, including after publication. Failure to provide requested information may result in publication delays or revocation of acceptance.
Image manipulation: All images in manuscripts accepted for publication will be scrutinized by our production department for any indication of manipulation that is inconsistent with the following guidelines. Manipulation that violates these guidelines may result in production delays or revocation of acceptance.
- No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced.
- Constructing figures using images taken from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels, is discouraged. But when this is necessary, it must be made explicit by the arrangement of the figure (e.g., using dividing lines) and in the text of the figure legend.
- Recordings obtained at different time points or from different sites must not be spliced together to give the appearance of a continuous record. Authors must make it clear in the figure legend how many different recordings are illustrated.
- Adjustments to images or recordings are acceptable if they are applied uniformly to all portions of the image or recording as long as they do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent information present in the original, including the background. Adjustments involving filtering or scaling (e.g., brightness, contrast, or color balance) must be applied to every pixel in the image or applied uniformly to the entire recording. Nonlinear adjustments (e.g., changes to gamma settings) or deleting portions of a recording (e.g., leak subtraction or stimulus artifacts) must be disclosed in the figure legend.
- The minimum resolution for images is 300 dpi.
- At the time of acceptance, authors will be required to submit uncropped images of complete gels for comparison to the prepared figures. If original data cannot be produced, the acceptance of the manuscript may be revoked.
Scale bars: All illustrations documenting results must include a bar to indicate the scale.
Molecular weights and fragment sizes: The migration of protein molecular weight size markers or nucleic acid size markers must be indicated and labeled appropriately (e.g., “kD”, “nt”, “bp”) on all figure panels showing gel electrophoresis.
Policy on Copyright
Copyright of all material published in eNeuro remains with the authors. The authors grant the Society for Neuroscience a license to publish their work. Immediately upon publication, the work becomes available for the public to copy, distribute, or display under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. Per the terms of the license, it is not necessary to obtain permission or pay a fee to reuse this material, provided the authors receive proper acknowledgement.
The corresponding author may sign the license agreement on behalf of all authors, except authors who are NIH employees. Each author employed by NIH must complete and sign an NIH Publishing Agreement [PDF] and attach it to an unsigned eNeuro License to Publish form [PDF].
Policy Concerning Availability of Materials and Data
By publishing a paper in eNeuro, the author(s) agrees to make freely available to colleagues in academic research any clones of cells, nucleic acids, antibodies, etc., that were used in the research reported and that are not available from commercial suppliers.
Authors should, when possible, honor requests for access to any form of published data for appropriate scientific use. The editors reserve the right to request any original data from authors at any stage in the review or publication process, including after publication. Failure to provide requested information may result in publication delays or revocation of acceptance.
NIH Public Access Policy
NIH and certain private funding agencies require that a final, electronic version of manuscripts describing research that they supported be submitted to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central site. Information about the NIH policy can be found here.
As a service to our authors, eNeuro will deposit final versions of manuscripts in PubMed Central if the research was funded by NIH, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, or the Wellcome Trust. Authors funded by these agencies should accurately describe the source of funding in the acknowledgments section of their manuscripts.
Although NIH policy calls for manuscripts in PubMed Central to be freely accessible after 12 months, eNeuro will allow manuscripts to be publicly accessible through PubMed Central immediately upon publication, which is when all eNeuro articles become freely accessible.
This service will be provided automatically, without a fee, and should fulfill the obligations that grantees of these agencies have in complying with the NIH Public Access Policy for articles published in eNeuro.
Fees
No Submission Fee
Article Processing Fees
To offset expenses associated with eNeuro’s editorial process—including peer-review management, data tagging and composition, copyediting, online hosting and archiving, and publishing—the journal charges a publication fee to the authors, institutions, or funders for each article published. These fees will be billed to the corresponding author upon acceptance of the article. There is no fee for invited articles. Authors are not charged for color figures, tables, or multimedia.
Publication fees are discounted if the first and last authors are members of the Society for Neuroscience. For a limited time, there is a discounted publication fee as noted below.
- Research articles, History of Neuroscience, Societal Impact, Registered Reports, and Review articles: $1,950 for members and $2,925 for nonmembers.
- Commentaries and opinions: $975 for members and $1,465 for nonmembers.
- Wire transfer fee: $25.00.
If you would like to join SfN and take advantage of membership, visit our Member Center. Accepted manuscripts will not be published until payment has been received.
Funder Compliance
Authors retain copyright of their work and grant SfN license to publish under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
This Creative Commons license complies with funders who require an unrestricted attribution license at time of acceptance, including Wellcome Trust, Charity Open Access Fund* (COAF), and UK Research and Innovation** (UKRI).
For authors whose work is funded by NIH, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Wellcome Trust, or UKRI, eNeuro will deposit the final published article to PubMed Central (PMC) and/or Europe PMC.
* COAF includes a partnership between six UK medical research charities: Arthritis Research UK, Breast Cancer Campaign, the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Leukaemia & Lymphoma.
** UKRI includes nine different research bodies: MRC, BBSRC, AHRC, ESRC, EPSRC, NERC, STFC, Innovate UK, and Research England.
Reduced Charges
Fees will be reduced if the first and last authors are members of the Society for Neuroscience and have work addresses in one of the countries in the categories listed below. If the first and last authors work in countries in different categories, the country with the less reduced fee applies.
In an effort to aid neuroscientists working in resource-restricted countries and to broaden the dissemination of science to all areas of the world, eNeuro offers reduced submission and publication fees to scientists located in the countries classified by the World Bank as low-income economies (Category I), lower-middle-income economies (Category II), or upper-middle-income economies (Category III).
All publication fees will be reduced to 25 percent of the usual amount for Category I countries, and will be reduced to 50 percent of the usual amount for countries in Categories II and III.
Payment
Fees should be paid by credit card. If a credit card cannot be used, a check or wire transfer can be accepted. Purchase orders are no longer accepted.
Help
For payment questions, please contact eNeuro’s central office at eNeuro@sfn.org.
Contact Information
Society for Neuroscience Central Office
eNeuro
Society for Neuroscience
1121 14th Street, NW, Suite 1010
Washington, DC 20005 USA
Email: eNeuro@sfn.org
Phone: (202) 962-4000
Editor-in-Chief
Dr. Christophe Bernard
INSERM U1106
Faculté de Médecine Timone
27 Bd Jean MOULIN
Institut de Neurosciences des Systemes
13365 Marseille Cedex 05
France
Email: eNeuroeditor@sfn.org
Letter of Recommendation
As a service to our authors, eNeuro will provide a Letter of Recommendation to assist with their career progression on behalf of any author who has published a paper in eNeuro, if requested. The Letter of Recommendation will be signed by the Reviewing Editor of the paper, the Advisory Board member, and the Editor-in-Chief who can say with confidence the articles in eNeuro are highly suitable for the most competitive journals. Email questions and requests to eNeuro@sfn.org.