1 Guidelines for Authors of Neurochemical Journal 1
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Guidelines for Authors of Neurochemical Journal 1. GENERAL INFORMATION 1.1. Neurochemical Journal publishes works in all fields of neurochemistry and related areas, including biochemistry, molecular biology, bioorganic chemistry, microbiology, and medical biochemistry. 1.2. The journal publishes original articles that contain new experimental results, data on new neurochemical research methods, and theoretical findings with the presentation of new principles and approaches to solving neurochemical problems. The journal publishes solicited reviews and those submitted by authors on topical problems of neurochemistry, short communications, and discussion articles. Neurochemical Journal only publishes original content. Manuscripts submitted to the journal must not have been previously published in English or be under consideration for publication elsewhere, either in whole or in part. Articles that have positive peer reviews are accepted for publication. The date of receipt of an article is the date the editors receive a publication-ready manuscript or a revised version. 1.3. The manuscripts, including supporting materials (tables, schemes, figures), have to be submitted in the electronic form using Pleiades Publishing Ltd. author portal https://publish.sciencejournals.ru. The manuscripts may also be sent to the journal editors at [email protected]. Information on the authors, including their positions, academic degrees, addresses, phone numbers, e- mail addresses, as well as the corresponding author, should be presented on a separate page. The submission must include a copyright transfer agreement, completed and signed by all authors. The authors have to provide copies of permissions from the authors or other copyright holders (publishers) to use adopted materials (text (including parts of text), figures, tables, graphs, photos, and other objects of copyright) in the article. The authors are also responsible for ensuring that the submission adheres to all journal requirements including, but not exclusive to, details of authorship, study ethics and ethics approval, clinical trial registration documents, and conflict of interest declaration. 2. MANUSCRIPT STRUCTURE 2.1. Manuscripts should have 1.5 spacing without right justification. Pages should be in A4 format. The top, bottom, and left margins should be over 2.5 cm; the right margin should not be justified. The font should be 14-point Times New Roman. All pages of the manuscript, including tables, references, and figure legends, should be numbered; numbering is given at the top center. 2.2. The manuscript should begin as follows: title, authors, their affiliations, and addresses. This is followed by an abstract (from 100 to 250 words) that reflects the main results of the work and conclusions, and keywords (12—15 words). An asterisk on the first page should contain the postal and electronic address of the corresponding author. For example: Article Title A. A. Ivanova*, B. B. Sidorova, and A. B. Petrovb aInstitute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia bInstitute of Physiology, Siberian Division, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia Abstract—… Keywords:... *Corresponding author; address: ul. Bulterova 5a, Moscow, 117865 Russia; phone: +7 (495) 333-3333; e-mail: [email protected] Use of nonstandard abbreviations and references in the abstract is not recommended. 1 2.3. The manuscript should be subdivided into the following sections: (1) Introduction, (2) Materials and Methods, (3) Results, (4) Discussion (Results and Discussion sections may be combined in one section), (5) Conclusions, (6) Acknowledgments, (7) Funding, (8) Compliance with ethical standards, and (9) References. The detailed recommendations for the presentation of the experimental material are specified in the APPENDIX TO GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS. 2.3.1. The Introduction should contain the history of the problem with reference to similar studies and a statement of the goals and objectives of the study. 2.3.2. Materials and Methods should contain enough information for reproduction of the study; it should also include the materials and chemicals used, along with the names of manufacturers and their locations. Well-known methods should not be described; it is possible to refer to a literature source. If a method is not widely known, it is desirable to describe the principle of the method and refer to its author. The following references are unacceptable: “X was measured by method [7]” or “according to [7]”. 2.3.3. The Results should be condensed to the utmost and be clear, but should contain sufficient detail to understand and reproduce the work. The editors reserve the right to shorten articles. The key recommendations for the presentation of the results are represented in the APPENDIX TO GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS. All results should be analyzed statistically; the details of the statistical analysis should be presented in the manuscript (see details in the APPENDIX TO GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS). The presentation of the data should correspond to the statistical methods used. The articles should contain a statistical analysis of the results. The data of a considerable number of independent experiments should be presented in a form that clearly shows their reproducibility and importance. If the goal of a study is to determine quantitative or statistical characteristics, the results should be presented as follows: (1) number of independent experiments, (2) mean value, (3) standard deviation, and (4) variance of the standard error. It should be clearly stated whether standard deviation or standard error was used. A convenient form for these data in a table is as follows: 263 ± 2.5 (10), where the number in parentheses shows the number of values used to calculate the mean. If the results differ significantly, it is necessary to perform a test to determine the significance and evaluate the probability. Statistics for a normal distribution should be used unless another distribution is specified. With the utilization of other statistics methods (for example, nonparametric ones), the results should be presented in a form corresponding to the selected method. 2.3.4. The Discussion should interpret, not recapitulate, the results; speculations not directly related to the experimental data should be avoided. Use of a simple and pictorial scheme to illustrate the main results is encouraged. The length of the Discussion should not exceed double the length of the Results. 2.3.5. The Conclusions in the experimental works should not exceed 15 lines and should contain a short conclusion that stresses the novelty of the data in the article. 2.3.6. The fund and project no. should be presented in Funding after Conclusions. For example: “The study was funded by…” or “No external funding was received”. 2.3.7. Compliance with ethical standards. (1) Conflicts of interest. For example: “Author… is a member of committee…” or “The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest”. (2) Ethical approval. For example: “All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed” or “All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards” or “This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors”. (3) Informed consent. For example: “Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study” or “This article does not contain any studies involving human participants performed by any of the authors”. 2.3.8. The list of references should be as brief as possible but should contain all relevant recent publications of fundamental importance. The references should be cited in the text by numbers in square brackets in order of appearance in the manuscript. 2 A reference should contain the surname of all authors, journal, year, volume, number (issue), first and last pages; or book title, city, publisher, year, and first and last pages. The style used for citation of journals, monographs, and collections of articles is given in the following examples: 1. Ivanov, I.M. and Petrov, P.P., Zh. Vyssh. Nerv. Deyat, 1993, vol. 43, no. 5, pp. 102-110. 2. Gladysheva, I. P., Zamolodchikova, T. S., Sokolova, E.A., and Larionova, N.I., Biochemistry (Moscow), 1999, vol. 64, pp. 1244-1249. 3. Rodrigues Macedo, M.L., Machado Freire, M.G., Cabrini, E.C., Toyama, M.H., Novello, J.C., and Marangoni, S., Biochim. Biophys. Acta, 2003, vol. 1621, pp. 170-182. 4. Simonov, P.V., Motivated Brain, Moscow: Nauka, 1987. 5. Roger, D., Self-Regulation of the Brain and Behavior, Elbert, T.H., Ed., Berlin: Springer, 1984, pp. 180-195. 2.3.9. Each table should have a title and be prepared on a separate sheet. The same data cannot be published in two forms, e.g., a table and a figure or a table and in the text. All table columns should have brief headings. Avoid columns with data that are easily derived from other columns, e.g., by subtraction or taking a percentage. All results of measurements should be analyzed and evaluated by methods of variation statistics. 2.3.10. Figures (graphs, diagrams, etc.) should be prepared as black-and-white images. All letters, numbers, and symbols should be no smaller than 3.3 mm and printed in Arial font. Graph axes and curves should be appropriately labeled. Axis labels should indicate measured quantities with units. If a graph contains more than one curve, the curves should be numbered and explanations should be provided for each number in the figure caption. Preferred symbols for experimental points are filled and empty circles, squares, triangles, and diamonds. Individual curves may be distinguished by solid and dotted lines. All lines should be drawn clearly and have a width (usually 3 points) that allows for the required reduction or magnification upon final printing. Each figure should be supplemented with an informative title and legend that make its meaning comprehensible without reference to the text.