Guide for Authors

An International Journal
The Official Journal of the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology

Submission of Manuscripts
Psychoneuroendocrinology now proceeds totally online via an electronic submission system. By accessing the online submission system through the Author Gateway, www.ees.elsevier.com/pnec you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. When submitting a manuscript online, authors need to provide an electronic version of their manuscript and any accompanying figures and tables. The corresponding author is requested to provide 4-5 potential reviewers when submitting a manuscript.

Ensuring that the comments to the editor accompanying the manuscript clearly discloses any actual or potential financial and other conflicts of interest related to the submitted manuscript is also the responsibility of the corresponding author. This requirement applies to authors and co-authors and includes disclosure of all financial considerations (ownership, equity position, stock options, consulting fees, patent rights, employee status and corporate affiliations) associated with any drug, product, process, or commercial laboratory mentioned in the submitted material.

In addition, the general details of support from sources for the study should be described. Failure to comply with conflict of interest requirements may result in rejection of the manuscript and/or retraction of the published article. Disclosure of the conflict of interest will be made in the published article. There is no disclosure form as such, you only need to mention any conflict of interest by mentioning its nature, but only when there is one.

Once the uploading is done, the system automatically generates an electronic (PDF) proof, which is then used for reviewing. All correspondence, including the Editor's decision and request for revisions, will be processed through the system and will reach the corresponding author by e-mail.

Once a manuscript has successfully been submitted via the online submission system authors may track the status of their manuscript using the online submission system (details will be provided by e-mail). If your manuscript is accepted by the journal, subsequent tracking facilities are available on Elsevier's Author Gateway, using the unique reference number provided by Elsevier and corresponding author name (details will be provided by e-mail).

Authors may send queries concerning the submission process or journal procedures to the appropriate Editorial Office:

Editorial Assistant to Robert Dantzer
R-M. Bluthe, Laboratoire de Neurobiologie Integrative, CNRS FRE 2723, INRA UMR 1244, Universite Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2, Institut Francois Magendie, 146 Rue Leo Saignat, 33077 Bordeaux cedex - France Fax: +33-5-56 98 28 29, E-mail: rosemarie.bluthe@wanadoo.fr

Editorial Assistant to Ned Kalin
C. Comeau, Dept of Psychiatry, Univ. of Wisconsin Medical School, 6001 Research Park Blvd., Madison, WI 53719, USA, Fax: +1-608 261 1103, E-mail:pne@mail.psychiatry.wisc.edu

For further details on how to submit online, please refer to the online EES Tutorial for authors or contact Elsevier's Author Support Team at authorsupport@elsevier.com.

Submission of a paper implies that it has not been published previously, that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and that if accepted it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the publisher.

All experiments on human subjects should be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Manuscripts must be accompanied by a statement that all procedures were carried out with the adequate understanding and written consent of the subjects; authors are also asked to include such a statement in the methods sections of the manuscript. All animal experiments should be carried out in accordance with the UK Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act of 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. 80-23, revised 1978). Manuscripts should be accompanied by a statement that all efforts were made to minimize animal suffering, to reduce the number of animals used, and to utilize alternatives to in vivo techniques, if available. Authors are advised to consult the article "A fair press for animals" [New Scientist (1992) 1816: 18-30] before preparing their manuscripts. The Editors reserve the right to reject papers if there is doubt whether suitable procedures have been used.

Types of Contributions

Original research papers

Short communications describing new methods or the results of experiments that can be reported briefly are encouraged. They should comprise no more than 2000 words with a maximum of two illustrations (figures or tables).

Book Form: Books for review may be sent to Dr. Robert Dantzer. Book reviews are usually solicited by Dr. Dantzer. Authors interested in reviewing a particular book should communicate directly with him.

Letters to the Editor: Submission of correspondence that provides a forum for the discussion of recent articles published in Psychoneuroendocrinology should not exceed 500 words (including references). Tables and/or figures should not be used. Letters critical of an article published in the Journal must be received within 8 weeks of the article's publication; letters from outside the United States must be received within 12 weeks. Letters received after the deadline will not be considered for publication and those accepted will be sent to the authors for reply.

Randomized Controlled Trials: Articles reporting the results of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) should follow the guidelines of the CONSORT statement. Authors should complete both the CONSORT flow diagram and checklist (PDFs provided below). Both should be included as supplementary material during the submission process. The complete CONSORT guidelines can be found at http://www.consort-statement.org

Manuscript Preparation

Text: Follow this order when typing manuscripts: Title page (Authors, Affiliations), Summary, Keywords, Main text (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion), Acknowledgments, Appendix, References, Figure Captions and Tables. Do not import the Figures or Tables into your text. The corresponding author should be identified with an asterisk and footnote. All other footnotes (except for table footnotes) should be identified with superscript Arabic numbers. The title page, references, figure legends, acknowledgment and footnotes should be on separate pages.

Title page: The first page should contain the title, authors' names, and affiliations with complete addresses for all authors. The corresponding author should also be identified, including a complete mailing address with telephone and fax numbers, and an E-mail address (as well as any upcoming address changes).

Running title: less than 90 characters on the first page.

Summary: On the second page there should be a concise Summary. A list of six keywords suitable for indexing terms should be included at the bottom of the Summary page. These terms will be printed with the paper at the end of the Summary.

Body of manuscript: The paper itself should start on the third typed page with an Introduction. This should consist of an outline of the current state of knowledge in the field followed by a description of the study. The Methods section should contain sufficient technical details and references to enable the work to be repeated in another laboratory. A Results section should follow and a Discussion section should conclude the paper.

Author Disclosure - NEW!!

Role of Funding Source. Authors are kindly requested to briefly describe the role of the study sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement, authors should so state.

eg, Funding for this study was provided by NIMH Grant XXXXXXX; the NIMH had no further role in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication.

The second aspect of the Journal's new policy concerns the Conflict of Interest. ALL authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three (3) years of beginning the work submitted that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work.

Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership (except for personal investment purposes equal to the lesser of one percent (1%) or USD 5000), honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications, registrations, and grants. If there are no conflicts of interest, authors should state that there are none.

eg, Author Y owns shares in pharma company A. Author X and Z have consulted for pharma company B. All other authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Finally, before the references, the Journal will publish Acknowledgements, in a separate section, and not as a footnote on the title page.

eg, We thank Mr A, who kindly provided the data necessary for our analysis, and Miss B, who assisted with the preparation and proof-reading of the manuscript.

The submitting author is also required to make a brief statement concerning each named author's contributions to the paper under the headingng Contributors. This statement is for editorial purposes only and will not be published with the article.

eg, Author X designed the study and wrote the protocol. Author Y managed the literature searches and analyses. Authors X and Z undertook the statistical analysis, and author W wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript.

NB. During the online submission process the author will be prompted to upload these four mandatory author disclosures as separate items. They will be automatically incorporated in the PDF builder of the online submission system. Please do not include in the main manuscripts.

Abbreviations: The Council of Biology Editors (CBE) Style Manual should be used for style. Abbreviations should be spelled out the first time they are used in the manuscripts; less common abbreviations should also be spelled out in tables and figures.

Example

........infusion of a tracer dose of titrated norepinephrine (NE).....

Metric and English measurement abbreviations require no explanation. The abbreviations listed below should be used and do not require explanation. Periods are not used:

Example
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hour(s)/minute(s)/seconds(s) h/min/s
intravenous/oral/subcutaneous IV/PO/SC


Numbers one through nine should be spelled out; numerals should be used for all numbers above nine and for those used with abbreviations and measurements.

Examples five patients, 15 rats, 1h, 17h, 1.0 cm
Time is shown by the 24-hour clock (8:30 AM should be written as 0830h).


References: All publications cited in the text should be presented in a list of references following the text of the manuscript. In the text refer to the author's name (without initials) and year of publication (e.g. "Since Peterson (1993) has shown that..." or "This is in the agreement with results obtained later (Kramer, 1994)"). For three or more authors use the first author followed by "et al.", in the text. Where two or more references are cited together in the text, they should be in chronological order and separated by a semicolon (Watkins and Maier, 1994; Bluthe et al., 1999; Kubera and Maes, 2000). The list of references should be arranged alphabetically by authors' names. The manuscript should be carefully checked to ensure that the spelling of authors= names and dates are exactly the same in the text as in the reference list. For Short Communications, the reference section is limited to 15 references.

Only published and ?in press? (i.e., accepted for publication in a specific journal or book) references should appear in the reference list. The latest information on ?in press? references should be provided. Any ?in press? references that are relevant for reviewers to see in order to make a well-informed evaluation should be included as a separate document text file along with the submitted manuscript. ?Submitted? references should be cited only in text and in the following form: (A.B. Smith, C.D. Johnson, and E. Greene, unpublished observations). The form for personal communications is similar: (F.G. Jackson, personal communication). Authors are responsible for all personal communications.

References should be given in the following form:


Frommberger, U.H., Bauer, J., Haselbauer, P., Fraulin, A., Riemann, D., Berger, M., 1997. Interleukin-6(IL-6) plasma levels in depression and schizophrenia: comparison between the acute state and after remission. Eur. Arch. Psychiatry Clin. Neurosci. 247, 228-233.

Denenberg, V.H., Yutzey, D.A., 1985. Hemispheric laterality, behavioural asymmetry, and the effects of early experiences in rats. In: Stanley, G. (Ed.), Cerebral Lateralization in Nonhuman Species. Academic Press, New York, pp. 109-133.

Short Communications: The reference section is limited to 15 references.

Figures and Photographs
Figures and Photographs of good quality should be submitted online as a separate file. Please use a lettering that remains clearly readable even after reduction to about 66%. For every figure or photograph, a legend should be provided. All authors wishing to use illustrations already published must first obtain the permission of the author and publisher and/or copyright holders and give precise reference to the original work. This permission must include the right to publish in electronic media.

Tables
Tables should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals and must be cited in the text in sequence. Each table, with an appropriate brief legend, comprehensible without reference to the text, should be typed on a separate page and uploaded online. Tables should be kept as simple as possible and vertical lines should be avoided. Table titles should be complete but brief. Wherever possible a graphical representation should be used instead. Information other than that defining the data should be presented as footnotes.

Please refer to the generic Elsevier artwork instructions: http://authors.elsevier.com/artwork/psyneuen.

Colour reproduction
Psychoneuroendocrinology is now also included in a new initiative from Elsevier: 'Colourful e-Products'. Through this initiative, figures that appear in black & white in print can appear in colour, online, in ScienceDirect at http://www.sciencedirect.com. There is no extra charge for authors who participate.

For colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for colour in print or on the Web only. Because of technical complications which can arise by converting colour figures to "grey scale" (for the printed version should you not opt for colour in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the colour illustrations. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see http://authors.elsevier.com/artwork/psyneuen.

Supplementary material
Elsevier also accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com.

The digital object identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The DOI will never change. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly Articles in Press because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The DOI can also be used to create an URL hyperlink to supplementary material associated to an article.

When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are guaranteed never to change.

Complete the following steps to resolve a DOI:

1. Open the following DOI site with your browser http://dx.doi.org
2. Enter the entire DOI citation in the text box provided, and then click Go.

The article or supplementary material that matches the DOI citation appears in your browser window.

The DOI scheme is administered by the International DOI Foundation. Many of the world's leading learned publishers have come together to build a DOI-based article linking scheme known as CrossRef.

The article in the journal must be complete and fully comprehensible without reference to the Supplementary Material. The purpose of Supplementary Material is to provide additional and usually more detailed information for readers who are particularly interested in the study. Supplementary Material is not an integral part of a published paper; the suitability of the Supplementary Material is assessed by the editor but it is not subject to the peer review procedure as applied to articles in the journal. Supplementary Material may either accompany the first version of a manuscript submitted to the journal or in response to a request from an editor.

Scope of Supplementary material Several types of material may be included in Supplementary Material. These may include more detailed tables of demographic data and of results and statistical analyses. In other cases, Supplementary Material provides an opportunity for authors to publish questionnaires used for data collection that are too long for inclusion in the journal article. Additional and more detailed figures and photographs, including colour pictures, can be reproduced in this way.

There is also a possibility of supplying audio and video files as Supplementary Material; in such cases, authors are advised to seek the advice of the Editor before preparing the material.

Format for submission Supplementary Material should begin with a statement of the Title and Authors of an article exactly as they appear in the main manuscript, followed by the statement "This material supplements but does not replace the content of the peer-reviewed paper published in Psychoneuroendocrinology". Authors should ensure that the journal article contains at least one footnote referring to the Supplementary Material.

The text of the Supplementary Material should to the extent possible be styled according to the usual format of the journal. However, when the intention is to display materials in an existing format (e.g. a questionnaire or psychological test materials), they may be reproduced without change.

Word-processor or rtf files for widely-used computer systems are acceptable. Word-processor files may include graphics. Separate graphic items may also be submitted in standard file formats such as metafiles, bitmaps, jpg or gif. Scanned images are acceptable but image sizes, colour depth and resolution should be adjusted to the minimum necessary to convey the required information at high quality. Files should not be submitted in proprietary formats that cannot be read without special software. At this time only media that can be read by Windows systems can be accepted.

Supplementary Material relating to a particular article may be submitted as more than one file. However, if a large number of files are submitted, editors may request they be combined into a smaller number of larger files. Editorial offices will convert all submitted files to pdf format; all Supplementary Material for any one article will be concatenated into one pdf file.

There is at present no specific limit on the file sizes for "Optional E-Only Supplementary Files" but editors reserve the right to refuse excessively large files or material that they consider unsuitable for any other reason.

Copyright Transfer
Upon acceptance of an article, you will be asked to transfer copyright (for more information on copyright see http://authors.elsevier.com/journal/psyneuen. This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included in the submission, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: contact Elsevier's Rights Department, Philadelphia, PA, USA: phone (+1) 215 238 7869, fax (+1) 215 238 2239, e-mail healthpermissions@elsevier.com.

Requests for materials from other Elsevier publications may also be completed on-line via the Elsevier homepage http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissions

Proofs
Proofs will be sent to the author (first named author if no corresponding author is identified of multi-authored papers) and should be returned within 48 hours of receipt. Corrections should be restricted to typesetting errors; any others may be charged to the author. Any queries should be answered in full. Please note that authors are urged to check their proofs carefully before return since the inclusion of late corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofs are to be returned to the Log-in Department, Elsevier, Stover Court, Bampfylde Street, Exeter, Devon EX1 2AH, UK.

Offprints
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF of the article via e-mail or, alternatively, 25 free offprints. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.