For Authors

Introduction

Journal of Brain and Spine, published quarterly, is a specialized medical and health journal hosted by the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. The journal aims to create a high-end academic exchange platform focusing on basic and clinical research in neuroscience, to promote interdisciplinary integration in the field of brain science, to lead the international academic frontier, to facilitate the clinical translation of research outcomes, and to support the training of professionals.

Types of papers

The article type should be specified in the author’s cover letter.

Journal of Brain and Spine considers manuscripts of the following types:

· Original Article

· Review

· Letter to the Editor

· Editorial

· Protocol

· Commentary

· Correspondence

· Perspectives

Original Article

The minimum requirement of a submitted research article is 5,000 words excluding the references and at least 5 display items (figures and tables). Up to 10 figures and/or tables are allowed for the entire manuscript. References are limited to 100.

The submitted manuscript should be a substantial novel research study, organizing a complete story with complex mechanisms elucidated using multiple techniques or approaches. It should provide mechanistic insights into a particular aspect of neuroscience field. JBS also welcomes clinical research investigating the pathogenesis or diagnostic markers of a disease. Please note that for clinical trials, an Informed Consent should be provided as supplemental material and stated in the main text.

Review

A Review is an authoritative, balanced and scholarly survey of recent developments in a research field. Reviews are usually 8,000 words minimum (including an abstract of no more than 350 words, excluding the reference and title) and 3-8 schematic illustrations are strongly encouraged. Reviews are often contributed by research pioneers in the field and should be broad enough that it is not dominated by the work of a single laboratory, and particularly not by the authors' own work.

Letter to the Editor

A Letter to the Editor reports a short but exciting finding within the journal’s scope and of broad interest to the community. The letter should be brief yet concise, and it should not have an abstract or subsections such as Introduction, Results or Discussion. No Materials and Methods section is needed, but any technical information which the authors think is important should be submitted as supplementary materials.

For Letter to the Editor, the total words count should not exceed 2,500 and the display items should be limited to 2. References are limited to 15.

Editorial

Editorial is generally from the (guest) editor of the publication or opinions of recognized leaders in neuroscience specialties. Editorials are usually 2000 maximum excluding references, tables and figures.

Protocol

JBS welcomes the protocol paper that is a format for step-by-step descriptions of procedures that can be followed immediately by other researchers. A protocol paper should contain sufficient information describing the experimental details including reagents, equipment, timing, data analysis and interpretation, and necessary instructions throughout each step of an experiment. A discussion of the protocol must be included to state the advantages and limitations of the current technique.

Specific viewpoints or comments on the latest significant research progress in the field of brain and spine, as well as the impact and application of new technologies.

Invited Opinion

Scientific experts or influencers may be from time-to-time invited by the Editor-in-Chief or Executive Associate Editors to share their opinions. These papers have to be shorter than 2,500 words, contain no more than 15 references, and at most 2 illustration. No abstract is required.

Contact Information

If you have questions about the submission process, please contact the Editorial Office by email via jbseditor@mail.sysu.edu.cn.

Username and Password

Editorial Manager is used for processing all submissions and requires accurate email addresses for all authors and reviewers. Your username and password remain the same whether you are acting as an author or a reviewer.

Duplicate registrations may create substantial problems, such as authors missing revision invitations or reviewers being unable to access review requests. To update your information, please follow the steps below and ensure to save any changes by clicking “Update” or “Submit” as appropriate before exiting. Please do not register a second time, if you believe your information is already in the system.

IF YOU KNOW YOUR USERNAME AND PASSWORD

Log into the home page using your username and password and hit enter or click “Author Login” Click “Update My Information” and review your contact information. Only one email address can be listed. Please be sure you use an email you frequently check and is unlikely to change if you move to a new institution. Here you can update all your current contact information and change your password. Please remember to click “Submit” to save changes before closing the window. Change data as needed-Be sure to click “Submit” at the bottom of the page.

IF YOU DO NOT KNOW YOUR USERNAME AND PASSWORD

If you do not know your username and password but believe you are in the system, please do the following:

Go to Editorial Manager, click on “Send Login Details” and enter the email address you believe you are registered in the system. If you are already in the system, it will notify you via email to reset your password. If you have changed your email address recently and Editorial Manager does not recognize you, we suggest you also try entering in your previous email address so that you do not generate duplicate registrations within the system.

IF YOU NEVER REGISTERED

If you have never been in the system in any role (author or reviewer) go to the home page, click on “Register Now” and follow the steps provided on the website.

If for any reason you cannot access your information or are not sure if you are in the system, please send an email to es@gzzoc.com with your first name, last name, city and state, or city, and country as appropriate, and your new email address. The Editorial Office can verify if you have an existing account.

Author Checklist

Please prepare the following items before logging into Editorial Manager:

· Designate one author as the corresponding author with contact details

· If the paper was previously rejected by another journal, please prepare and submit copies of the reviews and your responses to them in the Cover Letter.

· Provide at least 4-12 taxonomy topics on the submission form.

When uploading files, please make certain that:

· Precis is 35 words or fewer, acronyms spelled out, written in full sentences rather than a bulleted list, and uploaded as the Precis file.

· Manuscript file contains a title page.

· Manuscript file contains an abstract.

· Manuscript file contains continuous line numbering

· Figures and tables are not embedded in the manuscript file

· Submit figures and tables as separate files.

· Abstract conforms to the journal’s structured format.

· Figures are in tiff or eps format.

· Tables include titles, brief descriptions, and footnotes.

· Online-only figures/tables are in PDF and properly labeled.