Guide For Authors

Submission

Articles must be written in accurate scientific English suitable for publication. The articles are subject to review and editing; however, authors are responsible for the correctness and accuracy of the manuscript's English language. The articles must adhere to the guidelines for authors and should be submitted solely through the online submission system (Online Submission).

Aims and Scope

The Kavosh Journal of Neurosciences (KJN) is a peer-reviewed open-access journal. The KJN is published Twice a year under the Kavosh Institute. The primary aim of KJN is to publish high-quality research articles, reviews, short communications, letters to the editor, case reports, and clinical notes that cover the broad spectrum of neuroscience. Our goal is to provide a platform for scientists, clinicians, and scholars to share their latest research findings, advancements, and perspectives on the neural sciences.

The journal's scope includes, but is not limited to:

1. Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience: Studies on the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying neural function and behavior.
2. Systems Neuroscience: Research on the neural systems and circuits that underlie behavior, cognition, and sensory processing.
3. Behavioral Neuroscience: Investigations into the neural basis of behavior, including learning, memory, motivation, and social behavior.
4. Clinical Neuroscience: Research on the neural mechanisms underlying neurological and psychiatric disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, depression, and anxiety disorders.
5. Neuropharmacology: Studies on the development, action, and therapeutic application of drugs that affect the nervous system, including psychopharmacology and neurotoxicology.
6. Herbal Medicine and Neurotherapeutics: Research on the potential therapeutic benefits of herbal medicine and natural products for neurological disorders and neurodegenerative diseases.
7. Neurotechnologies and Neuroengineering: Innovations in neuroimaging, brain-computer interfaces, and neuroprosthetics.
8. Neuroethics and Policy: Discussions on the social, ethical, and policy implications of neuroscience research.

General Policy

Manuscripts, or the essence of their content, must be previously unpublished and should not be under simultaneous consideration by another journal. By submitting the manuscript, the corresponding author acknowledges that all the co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript. The work should be original or thorough by an authoritative person in a pertinent field. 

Types of Articles

• Original papers: The maximum length of original articles (including tables and figures materials) is 5000 words.

• Review papers: There are no word limits for review articles.

• Case reports: Case reports will be accepted only as Letters to the Editor or clinical notes (please see below).

• Short communications: The maximum word number of short communications should be below 1500 words with a maximum of one table or figure and 10 references. The manuscript should be structured, including an introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, and conclusion with a structured abstract as original articles.

• Letter to the Editor: This may concern short scientific reports and comments. The maximum number of words should be below 800 words with a maximum of 5 references and no abstract, a maximum 1 table or figure, and unstructured.

• Clinical notes: Refer to important, interesting observations that are imperative for reminders in clinical practice. The maximum number is 1000 words with maximum 8 references, 1 table, and 1 figure with no abstract.

  All papers submitted for publication in the Journal are assessed by at least two independent reviewers with the mutual anonymity rule as to the names of reviewers and authors observed. During manuscript submission, it is required to introduce two pertinent reviewers. 

Ethics in Publishing

The Kavosh Journal of Neurosciences follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) ‘s Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

If research misconduct, fraud, or plagiarism is suspected, editors will follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and reserve the right to inform authors or their institution. More details are available from Publication Ethics. Please read these instructions before submitting your article.

Authorship: As stated in the ICMJE recommendations, authorship credit requires:

• Significant contributions to conceptualization and design; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of the data,
• The drafting of the article or critical revision for important intellectual content,
• Final approval of the version to be published,
• Authors are expected to consider the list and order of authors before submitting the manuscript.

Study design and ethical approval: Good research should be well-justified, well-planned, appropriately designed, and ethically approved. Conducting research to a lower standard may constitute misconduct. The authors are responsible for both the scientific content as well as the bibliographic information accuracy.

Human and animal studies: All manuscripts reporting the results of experimental investigations involving human subjects should include a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from each subject or subject’s guardian. All animal or human studies should be used after approval of the experimental protocol by a local ethics committee.

Data analysis: Data should be appropriately analyzed, but inappropriate analysis does not necessarily constitute misconduct. Fabrication and falsification of data do constitute misconduct.

Multiple, redundant, or concurrent publication: Manuscripts are considered for publication only if they are not under consideration by other journals and have not been published previously in the same or substantially similar form. If a prior or duplicate publication is discovered, the editor will address the matter with the affected author/s and the other journal’s editor. This will be done following guidelines published by the ICJME and COPE. Redundant publication occurs when two or more papers, without full cross reference, share the same hypothesis, data, discussion points, or conclusions. In such cases, the manuscript will be rejected.

Conflicts of interest policy: Conflicts of interest include those that may not be fully apparent and which may influence the judgment of authors, reviewers, and editors. They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived. They may be personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial. “Financial” interests may include employment, research funding, stock or share ownership, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies, and company support for staff.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism ranges from the unreferenced use of others’ published and unpublished ideas, including research grant applications to submission under “new” authorship of a complete paper, sometimes in a different language. It may occur at any stage of planning, research, writing, or publication: it applies to print and electronic versions. The Kavosh Journal of Neurosciences checks all manuscripts for plagiarism by iThenticate. Authors are expected to check their manuscript for plagiarism before submission.

The Kavosh Journal of Neurosciences guideline is in agreement with the COPE position statement on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in any step of manuscript preparation.

“Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.”

https://publicationethics.org/cope-position-statements/ai-author

Retractions: The Kavosh Journal of Neurosciences is committed to maintaining scholarly integrity. Therefore, retracting articles may be necessary occasionally. The Kavosh Journal of Neurosciences considers publishing retractions according to COPE guidelines for retracting articles.

Cover Letter

Submissions should be accompanied by a cover letter, with a concise description of the research being reported and the reasons why it deserves publication in this journal. The cover letter should also contain a declaration by the Corresponding Author on behalf of the others, stating that to

• The paper has not been published to date (except for abstracts of conference materials).
• The paper has not been accepted for publication elsewhere.
• All persons listed as the authors have read it and approved it for publication. 

Manuscript Preparation

The manuscript should be prepared as follows:

Page 1: Title page, including:

• Manuscript Title (Maximum 50 characters)
• Running Title
• Authors full names (First name and last name) with their affiliations
• Corresponding Author's name with affiliation, postal address and email address

Page 2: Abstract (for original, review, and short communications). The abstract should be structured and consist of the following parts: Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusion

Page 3 and subsequent pages: Main manuscript, structured as Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, and References. Conflict of interest and acknowledgments should be mentioned before references.

Tables and Figures should be submitted as separate files. Figure legends should be mentioned on the last page of the manuscript.

The authors are requested to submit their manuscripts via the following link:

Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submission to Biomedical Journals” proclaimed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/).

The corresponding author is the main owner of the article so she/he can withdraw the article when it is incomplete (before entering the review process or when a revision is asked for) by submitting a letter to the editorial office. The reasons for the withdrawal request must be well-founded and the process should be conducted in line with COPE publication ethics.

1) Research manuscripts addressing original work, controversial opinions or "negative" results are often published as short communications after they have passed the review process.

2) For review articles, the authors are requested to provide at least three published articles in the related field of their submitted manuscript in the references section.

3) Manuscripts should be typed on A4 paper in clear, concise English, double-spaced. Authors are requested to reserve 2.5 cm margins all around the paper. Original drawings of photos, tables and figures should be furnished with the manuscript.

4) Manuscripts should be kept to a minimum length and subdivided into labeled sections (Title page, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgment, Authors’ contributions and References).

5) A title page is to be provided and should include the article title, authors’ names with full first names (with degrees), authors’ affiliation, suggested running title and corresponding author. The affiliation should comprise the department, institution (usually university or company), city and state (or nation).

• The suggested running title should be less than 50 characters (including spaces) and should comprise the article title or an abbreviated version thereof. For office purposes, the title page should include the name and complete mailing address, telephone and fax number, and email of the corresponding author.
• The "corresponding author" and "first author" must have an ORCID ID.

6) An abstract no longer than 250 words for review and research articles must be provided on the second page. The abstract should be structured as objective(s) (including purpose setting), materials and methods, results, and conclusion.

7) A list of 5-8 keywords, chosen from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list, must be provided directly below the abstract. Keywords should express the precise manuscript content, as they are used for indexing purposes.

8) List abbreviations and nomenclature in alphabetical order and non-standard abbreviations contained in the manuscript (excluding references) with definitions after the keywords. Use abbreviations sparingly and only when necessary to save space, and avoid repeating long chemical names or therapeutic regimes.

9) Abbreviations must be defined at their first use in the manuscript. Please consider the consistency of the abbreviations throughout the manuscript. For gene and protein names please follow the International Protein Nomenclature Guidelines:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/doc/internatprot_nomenguide/

10) Authors should disclose, at the time of submission, information on interests that may influence the manuscript’s results and conclusions.

11) Acknowledgments, sponsorship or grants should be written after the main text and before the references.

12) All authors take responsibility for the content of the submitted manuscript. Therefore, all the authors should complete the "Authors' Contributions Statement" file.

13) References in limited numbers and up-to-dated must be numbered consecutively in order of citation in the text (number in parentheses). Periodical titles should be abbreviated according to the PubMed Journals Database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=journals). Print the surnames and initials of all authors when there are six or less. In the case of seven or more authors, the names of the first six authors are followed by et al. (Italic) should be listed. Listed below are references to a journal, a chapter in a book and a book, respectively, in the correct style (according to Vancouver style):

• Amiri N, Ajami S, Shahroodi A, Jannatabadib N, Amiri Darbana Sh, Fazly Bazzaz BS, et al. Teicoplanin-loaded chitosan-PEO nanofibers for local antibiotic delivery and wound healing. Int J Biol Macromol 2020; 162: 645–656.
• Ghorbani M, Baharara J, Kerachian MA. Could high serum folate be associated with adverse effects? Iran J Basic Med Sci 2020; 23: 1499-1500.
• Alavi MS, Karimi G, Roohbakhsh A. The role of orphan G protein-coupled receptors in the pathophysiology of multiple sclerosis: A review. Life Sci 2019; 224: 33-40.
• Arabi L, Ho JQ, Javdani N, Jones S, Chen I, Sharaf M, et al. Nanoparticulate systems for sustained delivery of paracrine factors. In: Mahmoudi M, editor. Nanomedicine for Ischemic Cardiomyopathy Progress, Opportunities, and Challenges. 1st ed. Academic Press Inc; 2020.p. 157-169.
• Balali-Mood M, Abdollahi M. Basic and Clinical Toxicology of Organophosphorus Compounds. 1st ed. Springer; 2014.

14) Copyright: As an open-access journal, The Kavosh Journal of Neurosciences uses licenses that keep copyright with the author, but the author transfers all commercial exploitation rights to the publisher. The author(s) can post a copy of the published article on his/her website or his/her institution’s website with no permission, provided that full citation of the journal and a link to the Kavosh Journal of Neurosciences website are included. The Kavosh Journal of Neurosciences can also be used in educational materials with citations. The author(s) may republish the article in a book written or edited by himself/herself without permission, but with full acknowledgment of the first publisher.

15) The editor-in-chief may reject manuscripts before peer review if they are beyond the scope of the journal or do not comply with the author's instructions.

16) The Kavosh Journal of Neurosciences follows the COPE guidelines for handling complaints and appeals.

Artwork: Tables in limited numbers should be self-explanatory, clearly arranged, and supplemental to the text. The captions should be placed above.

Figures should be utilized only if they augment the understandability of the text. The same data should not be presented in tables, figures, and text, at the same time. The captions should be placed below. Drawings and graphs should be professionally prepared with a minimum resolution of 300 DPI. In a figure or table, define the abbreviations used in a footnote.

In the review articles, preparing high-quality pictures or drawings is recommended for better understanding.

Submission Checklist

You can use this list to check your submission before sending it to the journal for review.   

1- Title page, consisting of only one page and including article title, list of authors, highest academic degrees, authors’ affiliations, name, telephone, and address of the corresponding author, and acknowledgments.

2- Manuscript main file without authors' names, affiliations, and acknowledgments.

Please read the author’s instructions carefully and make sure:

• The abstract is structured and limited to 250 words.
• The running title is included and has 50 characters at most.
• Discussion is separated from results.
• Introduction, conclusion, materials and methods, authors’ contributions, and acknowledgment are included.
• Tables must be integrated into the manuscript and not submitted separately.
• Please note that individual figures or photo files must be provided separately.
• References must comply with the journal’s format.

Peer Review

This journal uses double-blind peer review, which means that both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. To facilitate this, authors need to ensure that their manuscripts are prepared in a way that does not give away their identity. Authors have the right to communicate with the editor if they do not wish their manuscript to be reviewed by a particular reviewer. This is because of potential conflicts of interest. The Kavosh Journal of Neurosciences follows COPE ethical guidelines for peer reviewers to ensure the integrity of the scholarly record.

"The reviewing and publishing process depends on the quality of your study and the English accuracy of your manuscript." 

Article-Processing Charges

This journal currently has no article processing charge for authors! 

After Acceptance

Manuscripts are only accepted for publication on the understanding that the authors will permit editorial amendments. However, proofs will always be submitted to the corresponding author before being sent to the press. The decision to accept a contribution rests with the Kavosh Journal of Neurosciences Editorial Board.