Epilepsy Research

The journal will publish full-length original articles, full-length feature reviews or mini-reviews and short communications. Every effort will be made to notify authors about acceptance or rejection within 4 to 6 weeks. Book Reviews, Letters to the Editor and Abstracts of articles will be published at the Editors' discretion. Categories of manuscripts include:

(1) Full-length Papers: giving findings of original basic or clinical research in any area of epilepsy within the scope of the journal.

(2) Short Communications: 1,500 words plus no more than 3 figures or tables in total 20 references.

(3) Review Articles: on specialised topics within the scope of the journal. Prospective authors should contact one of the Managing Editors beforehand.

Epilepsy Research proceeds totally online via an electronic submission system. By accessing the online submission system at http://ees.elsevier.com/epires/ you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. It is suggested that authors direct the manuscripts to the most appropriate Co-Editor-in-Chief. There is a section for Editor Comments where authors are invited to direct comments to the editors or suggest possible reviewers (please also provide e-mail adresses) for their paper. When submitting a manuscript online, authors need to provide an electronic version of their manuscript and any accompanying figures and tables.

The author should select from a list of scientific classifications, which will be used to help the editors select reviewers with appropriate expertise, and an article type for their manuscript (Full-Length Papers, Short Communications, Review Articles). 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 co-Editor-in-Chief:

Basic research:
Dr. Asla Pitkanen MD, PhD,
Department of Neurobiology, Professor and Chair
A.I.Virtanen Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Kuopio
P.O.Box 1627, Street address: Neulaniementie 2
FIN-70 211 Kuopio, FINLAND
e-mail: asla.pitkanen@uku.fi

Clinical research:
Dr. William H. Theodore MD
6328 Lenox Road
Bethesda MD 20817, USA
e-mail: william_theodore@hotmail.com

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

Manuscripts submitted to the Journal are only accepted on the understanding that:

1. they deal with original research and are subject to editorial revision;
2. they have not been and will not be published in whole or in part in any other journal;
3. the recommendations from the Declaration of Helsinki and the internationally accepted principles in the care and use of experimental animals have been adhered to;
4. the cover letter should attest that the proper institutional approval was obtained;
5. that the cover letter clearly discloses any actual or potential financial and other conflict of interest related to the submitted manuscript. 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 retraction of the published article.

Submission of a manuscript implies the transmission of copyright from the author to the Publisher.

Changes to authorship

This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:
Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed. After the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.

1. Papers should be written in English and should be concisely written in a readily understandable style.
2. Standard nomenclature should be used throughout; unfamiliar or new terms and arbitrary abbreviations should be defined when first used.
3. Unnecessary abbreviations and 'slang' are to be avoided.
4. A title page which includes only the title, authors' full names, complete addresses of academic or professional affiliations, fax and e-mail details; the author to whom proofs and correspondence should be addressed should be indicated by an asterisk. The title should be short, clear and concise and should indicate the major point of the paper.
5. An abstract of about 200 words for Full-length Papers and 50-70 words for Short Communications. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separate from the article, so it must be able to stand-alone.
6. Up to six keywords should be given for indexing.
7. Subdivision of the article. Divide your article into clearly defined sections. Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.
8. Tables are to be uploaded, numbered consecutively with Arabic numbers. Each table should include a header. Do not use vertical bars. For every variable, the units of measurement should be clearly identified.
9. Figures of good quality should be submitted online as a separate file and numbered consecutively with Arabic numbers. Please use a lettering that remains clearly readable even after reduction to about 66%. For every figure, a legend should be provided. Please refer to the generic Elsevier artwork instructions: http://authors.elsevier.com/locate/artwork

Supplementary data
Elsevier accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please provide the data in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

Video data
Elsevier accepts video material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific research. Authors who have video or animation files that they wish to submit with their article are strongly encouraged to include these within the body of the article. This can be done in the same way as a figure or table by referring to the video or animation content and noting in the body text where it should be placed. All submitted files should be properly labeled so that they directly relate to the video file's content. In order to ensure that your video or animation material is directly usable, please provide the files in one of our recommended file formats with a maximum size of 10 MB. Video and animation files supplied will be published online in the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com. Please supply 'stills' with your files: you can choose any frame from the video or animation or make a separate image. These will be used instead of standard icons and will personalize the link to your video data. For more detailed instructions please visit our video instruction pages at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions. Note: since video and animation cannot be embedded in the print version of the journal, please provide text for both the electronic and the print version for the portions of the article that refer to this content.

1. Introduction: This should be complete enough to give the reasons for undertaking the study and a summary of the experimental plan. Exhaustive reviews of the literature should be avoided.
2. Methods: These should be described in sufficient detail so that the work can be duplicated, or by reference to previous descriptions if they are readily available. Commonly used methods require only a citation of the original source unless they have been substantially modified. Statistical tests used for evaluation of data should be briefly explained. In case of experimental studies, animals used should be described, including information on breed, breeder, sex, age, weight and the maintenance conditions. Special chemicals and drugs with their source should be grouped under a separate sub-heading ('Materials' or 'Drugs'). For drugs, generic names should be used: trade names may be given in parenthesis where the drug is first mentioned. In case of new drugs, a detailed chemical description (formula) should be given. The form of the drug used should be indicated.
3. Results: In this section the findings should be described clearly, concisely, and in logical order without discussion of their significance. Only in the case of Short Communications, the Results and Discussion section may be combined. Results should usually be presented in graphic or tabular form, rather than discursively. There should be no duplication in text, tables and figures. Experimental conclusions should be based on adequate numbers of observations with statistical analysis of variance and the significance of differences. The number of individual values represented by a mean should be indicated.
4. Discussion: This section should present conclusions to be drawn from the results accompanied by an assessment of their significance in relation to previous work. Speculative discussion is not discouraged, but the speculation should be based on the data presented and identified as such. In general, the discussion should be as concise as possible.
5. Acknowledgements: These may be included at the end of the Discussion section under a separate heading (but no number).
6. References: Citation of literature references in the text should be given at the appropriate places by author(s) name(s) followed by the year in chronological order (Strunk and White, 1975; Gurman and Kniskern, 1981). With more than two authors, name only the first followed by "et al."(Paivio et al., 1975). When two or more papers by the same author(s) appear in one year, distinguish them by a, b, etc. after the date (Babb et al., 1984a,b). The author is responsible for accurate reference citation and the exact agreement between text and reference list. All references cited in the text should be listed at the end of the paper on a separate page (also double-spaced), arranged in alphabetical order of the first author's names. Two or more references to the same author(s) should be in chronological order, according to the Harvard system. For references with three or more authors, which should be referred to as "et al." in the text, all names should be given in the reference list and these references should be arranged chronologically. Journal titles should be abbreviated according to Index Medicus. The form of literature reference should conform to the examples given below.

Paivio, A., Jansen, B., Becker, L.J., 1975. Comparisons through the mind's eye. Cognition 37, 635-647.

Strunk Jr., W., White, E.B., 1979. The Elements of Style, 3rd Ed. Macmillan, New York.

Gurman, A.S., Kniskern, D.P. (Eds.), Handbook of Family Therapy. Brunner/Maazel, New York, pp. 742-775.

This journal should be cited in lists of references as Epilepsy Res.

Upon acceptance of an article, you will be asked to transfer copyright (for more information on copyright, see http://authors.elsevier.com/locate/authorsrights. 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

Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies

Authors should keep a copy of their manuscripts, as proofs will be sent to them without the manuscript. One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author, to be checked for typesetting/editing. No changes in, or additions to, the accepted (and subsequently edited) manuscript will be allowed at this stage. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. A form with queries from the copyeditor may accompany your proofs. Please answer all queries and make any corrections or additions required. Elsevier will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. In order to do this we need your help. When you receive the (PDF) proof of your article for correction, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Subsequent corrections will not be possible, so please ensure your first sending is complete. Note that this does not mean you have any less time to make your corrections, just that only one set of corrections will be accepted.


The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. 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.

Extra reprints may be ordered by completing and returning to the Publisher the order form sent with the proofs.

There are no page charges.

For enquiries relating to the submission of articles please visit Elsevier's Author Gateway at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/authors. The Author Gateway also provides the facility to track accepted articles and set up e-mail alerts to inform you of when an article's status has changed, as well as detailed artwork guidelines, copyright information, frequently asked questions and more.