The Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium

Neuropharmacology is a member of the Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium (NPRC). The NPRC has been formed to reduce the time expended and, in particular, the duplication of effort by, and associated burden on reviewers involved in the peer review of original neuroscience research papers. It is an alliance of neuroscience journals that have agreed to accept manuscript reviews from other Consortium journals. By reducing the number of times that a manuscript is reviewed, the Consortium will reduce the load on reviewers and Editors, and speed the publication of research results.

If a manuscript has been rejected by another journal in the Consortium, authors can now submit the manuscript to Neuropharmacology and indicate that the referees' reports from the first journal be made available to the Editors of Neuropharmacology.

N.B. Only manuscripts which were first submitted to another journal after the 1st January 2008 are eligible for the NPRC scheme.

It is the authors' decision as to whether or not to indicate that a set of referee's reports should be forwarded from the first journal to Neuropharmacology. If an author does not wish for this to happen, the manuscript can be submitted to Neuropharmacology without reference to the previous submission. No information will be exchanged between journals except at the request of authors. However, if the original referees' reports suggested that the paper is of high quality, but not suitable for the first journal, then it will often be to an author's advantage to indicate that referees' reports should be made available.

Authors should revise the original submission in accordance with the first journal's set of referee reports, reformat the paper to Neuropharmacology's specification and submit the paper to Neuropharmacology with a covering letter describing the changes that have been made, and informing the Editors that they are happy for referees' reports to be forwarded from the first Consortium journal. Authors will be asked upon submission to Neuropharmacology the title of the first journal submitted to and the manuscript ID that was given by that journal. The editorial office of Neuropharmacology will request the referees' reports from the first journal.

The Editors of Neuropharmacology will use forwarded referees' reports at their discretion. The Editors may use the reports directly to make a decision, or they may request further reviews if they feel such are necessary.

Visit http://nprc.incf.org for a list of Consortium journals, as well as further information on the scheme.

US National Institutes of Health (NIH) voluntary posting (" Public Access") policy

Elsevier facilitates author response to the NIH voluntary posting request (referred to as the NIH "Public Access Policy"; see http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/index.htm) by posting the peer-reviewed author's manuscript directly to PubMed Central on request from the author, 12 months after formal publication. Upon notification from Elsevier of acceptance, we will ask you to confirm via e-mail (by e-mailing us at NIHauthorrequest@elsevier.com) that your work has received NIH funding and that you intend to respond to the NIH policy request, along with your NIH award number to facilitate processing. Upon such confirmation, Elsevier will submit to PubMed Central on your behalf a version of your manuscript that will include peer-review comments, for posting 12 months after formal publication. This will ensure that you will have responded fully to the NIH request policy. There will be no need for you to post your manuscript directly with PubMed Central, and any such posting is prohibited.

Exceptions: It is the policy of Elsevier that authors need not obtain permission in the following cases only: (1) to use their original figures or tables in their future works; (2) to make copies of their papers for use in their classroom teaching; and (3) to include their papers as part of their dissertations.

Type of manuscripts

Research Papers. Full papers can be of any length. However, authors should be as succinct as possible and excessively verbose manuscripts may be returned without review.

Mini-Reviews. Short, timely reviews will be by invitation. However suggestions for reviews are most welcome, and should be sent to the Chief Editor.

Online submission of papers

It is now possible to submit your manuscript to the Neuropharmacology Editorial office electronically.

Before submitting, it is essential that you refer to the Elsevier Artwork Guidelines: http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions


Once you are ready to submit:
1. Select 'Submit online to this journal' option from the 'Journal Services' on the http://www.elsevier.com/journals'.
2. Follow prompts online. Please note that at each stage of the submission process it is possible to go back a step, save the submission to continue later or remove/change any information already entered.
3. The submission tool will generate a PDF file to be used for the reviewing process.
4. You will receive confirmation of your submission, and further progress of your paper at every stage of its review period thereafter, via e-mail.

Transfer of Copyright
Elsevier will mail the corresponding author a "Transfer of Copyright" agreement once the paper has been received in production. All authors must sign the agreement before the article can be published. This transfer agreement enables Elsevier Ltd to protect the copyrighted material for the authors, but does not relinquish the author's proprietary rights. The copyright transfer covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article, including reprints, photographic reproductions, microform or any other reproductions of similar nature and translations, and includes the right to adapt the article for use in conjunction with computer systems and programs, including reproduction or publication in machine-readable form and incorporation in retrieval systems. Authors are responsible for obtaining from the copyright holder permission to reproduce any figures for which copyright exists.

Experimental procedures
All animal experiments should be carried out in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, the European Communities Council Directive of 24 November 1986 (86/609/EEC) or the National Institutes of Health guide for the care and use of Laboratory animals (NIH Publications No. 8023, revised 1978) and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed.

Manuscripts should be accompanied by a statement that all efforts were made to minimise animal suffering, to reduce the number of animals used, and to utilise alternatives to in vivo techniques, if available.

Authors are advised to consult A fair press for animals [New Scientist (1992) 1816: 1830] before preparing their manuscript. The Editors reserve the right to reject papers if there is doubt whether suitable procedures have been used.

Style

Manuscripts, including references and figure legends, should be typed double-spaced on one side of A4 paper (206x294 cm) or equivalent, with margins no less than 2.5 cm. Type should be no smaller than 12 point. All typed pages should be numbered consecutively, starting with the title page . Either U.K. or U.S. spelling may be used, but must be consistent throughout.

With the understanding that these suggestions will not necessarily be followed, authors should suggest at least four competent reviewers in their field, being sure to include current e-mail addresses. Please insert these suggestions in the 'Enter Comments' submission step box in EES.

Abbreviations. Abbreviations should be kept to a minimum. All abbreviations should be written in full when first used and the abbreviation given in parentheses.

Title page. This should contain a brief, but informative, title, a running title (not exceeding 40 characters), the names and addresses of the authors and a list of keywords or phrases. The author for correspondence, with telephone, Fax numbers and E-mail address, should be clearly indicated on this page. The manuscript should normally be produced using the following headings. One additional level of sub-headings may also be used.

Summary. The second page should consist of a short summary (not exceeding 250 words) which should be readily accessible to the non-specialist and contain the important points of the paper.

Keywords. Authors should provide up to six keywords, to appear just underneath the summary section. The keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Introduction. The third page should start with a succinct account of why the work was performed. Long historical introductions should not be used. The suggested word limit for Introduction is 500 words. A statement accessible to a lay audience indicating the potential benefit of the work to man or animals should be included. If any of the work contained in the manuscript has been published previously in the form of an abstract this must be referenced.

Methods. Sufficient detail is required to enable others to repeat the experiments. Where animals are involved full descriptions of all analgesic, anaesthetic and surgical procedures must be stated. Where abbreviations are used in place of long chemical names the full chemical name should be provided in this section. Details of any statistical analyses performed should be given. SI units should be used.

Results. The results should be fully illustrated. Negative findings should also be noted to avoid unnecessary replication by others.

Discussion. This should be as concise as possible; the suggested wordlimit is 1,500 words. Its main function should be to discuss the results in context with the current state of the field.

Acknowledgements. These should be as brief as courtesy allows.

References. These should not normally exceed 40. The reference list must be arrange alphabetically according to the surname of the first author, and chronologically if several papers by the same author(s) are referenced. Neuropharmacology's reference style is included in EndNote version 7 and above. If you have an earlier version of EndNote, you can download the style from the EndNote website at http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp
Davies, J., Francis, A. A., Jones, A. W., Watkins, J. C., 1981. 2-Amino-5-phosphonovalerate (2APV), a potent and selective antagonist of amino acid-induced and synaptic excitation. Neuroscience Letters 21, 77-81.
Ascher, P., Johnson, J. W. 1989., The NMDA receptor, its channel, and its modulation by glycine. In: Watkins, J. C., Collingridge, G. L., (Eds), The NMDA Receptor. IRL Press at Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 109-121.

Papers that have been accepted for publication may be cited as 'In press', and a photocopy of the manuscript must be provided. Papers submitted or in preparation should be referred to as (unpublished observations/personal communications) within the text, if absolutely necessary.

In the text, references should be given as: Smith (1964) or (Smith, 1964). In the case of multiple authorship, et al. should be used throughout, i.e. Smith et al. (1964). If works published by the same author(s) in the same year are cited, they should be distinguished by the letters a, b, c, etc.

Illustrations. For hard-copy submission manuscripts, two sets of figures in the form of high quality photographs, line drawings or laser prints should be sent to the Editorial Office together with the figure legends typed double-spaced on separate sheets. The figures should be lettered and clearly identified on the reverse with authors, figure numbers and orientation. Additional sets of figures should be included in the copies of the manuscript. These may be high quality photocopies and, where possible, the legend should be included with each figure (single-spaced if necessary) to aid the refereeing process.

All colour figures in accepted manuscripts will be charged at the rate of USD 300 for the first page of color per manuscript, followed by USD 200 for each subsequent page. Interactive Reports will be published on the web and in the print journal free of charge.

Tables. These should be kept to a minimum and should be self explanatory without reference to the text. Data presented in tables should not reproduce that presented in figures or the text.

A suitable location for the placement of tables and figures should be indicated in the text.

Multimedia files. Neuropharmacology is now able to accept electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets and sound clips. Any files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier web products, including ScienceDirect. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please ensure that data files are provided in one of our recommended file formats. Full details can be accessed on www.elsevier.com/authors


When supplementary files are supplied, an additional 'supplementary' figure list should also be submitted. Any supplementary material that is not directly referred to from within the text of your manuscript should be referred to via use of a footnote to the article title. In addition, it is also recommended that a short description is provided for each supplementary file supplied. When published online, the descriptive texts will appear as captions alongside links to the relevant supplementary files, an example layout of online supplementary material can be viewed via the following link: http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions

Please note that any supplementary material supplied is subject to the normal peer review process.


Proofs


For all accepted manuscripts, page proofs will be sent to the corresponding author (or the first-named author) for checking. Corrections to the proofs must be restricted to printer's errors. Any substantial alterations other than these may be charged to the author. Authors are particularly requested to return their corrected proofs as quickly as possible in order to facilitate rapid publication. Please note that authors are urged to check their proofs carefully before return, since late corrections cannot be guaranteed for inclusion in the printed journal. Reprints and copies of the issue (at a specially reduced rate) can be ordered on the form which will accompany the proofs. These should be returned to: Elsevier Ltd, Bampfylde Street, Exeter, EX1 2AH, U.K.

Disclaimer:

Whilst every effort is made by the publishers and editorial board to see that no inaccurate or misleading data, opinion or statement appears in this journal, they wish to make it clear that the data and opinions appearing in the articles and advertisements herein are the sole responsibility of the contributor or advertiser concerned. Accordingly, the publishers, the editorial board and editors and their respective employees, officers and agents accept no responsibility or liability.