SUBMISSION POLICY



Submission to this journal proceeds totally online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via the online submission page of this journal ( http://ees.elsevier.com/jneumeth/) you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the author's homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail.Authors are invited to provide the Editors-in-Chief with the names (and addresses) of five potential reviewers whom they feel are especially qualified in the subject area of the manuscript.

Preparation of Supplementary Material

Journal of Neuroscience Methods now accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, 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 ensure that data is provided 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 Corporate Website at http://www.elsevier.com/authors. Files can be stored on 3½ inch diskette, ZIP-disk or CD (either MS-DOS or Macintosh). This journal offers electronic submission services and supplementary data files can be uploaded via the web page of this journal via http://ees.elsevier.com/jneumeth.

ORGANIZATION OF THE ARTICLE

As a rule, Full Length Reports and Review Articles should be divided into sections headed by a caption (Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, References, Tables, Figures and Legends). Acknowledgements for personal and technical assistance should follow the Discussion section. Financial support should be indicated in the Acknowledgements. Short Communications Manuscripts of length up to a maximum of 3,000 words (including figure legends but not references), with no more than 1 figure and 1 table or 2 of either, will be considered for publication. Articles must be written in English, contain original experimental results, and should be complete in all respects. The layout and style should adhere strictly to the instructions given below and, in particular, the literature reference style (no more than 15 references).

Title page. The title page should contain the following items: (i) complete title (preferably no chemical formulas or arbitrary abbreviations); (ii) full names of all authors; (iii) complete affiliations of all authors; (iv) the number of text pages of the whole manuscript (including figures and tables) and the number of figures and tables; (v) the name and complete address of the corresponding author (as well as telephone number, facsimile number and E-mail address.)

Abstract. This should provide a concise description of the purpose of the report or review article and should not exceed 250 words. The abstract should include a maximum of 8 keywords, which reflect the entries the author(s) would like to see in an index.

Authors' full names, academic or professional affiliations, and complete addresses should be included on a separate title page. The name and address plus telephone and fax numbers as well as e-mail address of the author to whom proofs and correspondence are to be sent should be given.

Literature references. References in the text should start with the name of the author(s), followed by the publication date in brackets, e.g. Jones (1970) has shown the importance of. . ., or . . . has been described (Jones, 1970; Brown and Jones, 1971; Chin et al., 1972). . .; using date order. 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 first author. All items in the list of references should be cited in the text and, conversely, all references cited in the text must be presented in the list. Literature references must be complete, including initials of the authors cited, title of paper referred to, abbreviated title, year, volume, and first and last page numbers of the article, in a periodical. The abbreviations of journal titles should conform to those adopted by List of Serial Title Word Abbreviations, CIEPS/ISDS, Paris, 1985, ISBN 2-904-938-02-8. (See example 2.) The form of literature references of books should be: author, initials, title of book, publisher and city, year, and page number referred to. (See example 1.) References to authors contributing to multi-author books or to proceedings printed in book-form should be similar to those for books. (See example 3.)

Examples:-

Bure J, Bure ov O, Huston JP. Techniques and Basic Experiments for the Study of Brain and Behavior, second ed. Elsevier: Amsterdam, 1983: 326.
Langston JW, Irwin I, Langston EB, Forno LS. The importance of the `4-5' double bond for neurotoxicity in primates of the pyridine derivative MPTP. Neurosci. Lett., 1984;50:289-94.
Sofroniew MV. Morphology of vasopressin and oxytocin neurones and their central and vascular projections. In Cross BZ, Leng G, editors. The Neurohypophysis: Structure, Function and Control, Progress in Brain Research. Elsevier: Amsterdam, 1983;50:101-14.

Language Services
Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit http://www.elsevier.com/locate/languagepolishing or contact authorsupport@elsevier.com for more information. Please note Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by outside vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our terms and Conditions http://www.elsevier.com/termsandconditions

Copyright

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, 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.. Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign a "Journal Publishing Agreement'' (for more information on this and copyright see http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail (or letter) will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement. If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, 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, Oxford, UK: phone (+44) 1865 843830, fax (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail permissions@elsevier.com. Requests may also be completed online via the Elsevier homepage ( http://www.elsevier.com/permissions).

Ethics

Manuscripts submitted for publication must contain a statement to the effect that all human studies have been approved by the appropriate ethics committee and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki. It should also be stated clearly in the text that all persons gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study. Details that might disclose the identity of the subjects under study should be omitted. Reports of animal experiments must state that the "Principles of laboratory animal care" (NIH publication No. 86-23, revised 1996) were followed or the UK Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and associated guidelines, or the European Communities Council Directive of 24 November 1986 (86/609/EEC).

The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements. The author will be held responsible for false statements or for failure to fulfill the above-mentioned requirements.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures: A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website: http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalised, please "save as" or convert the images to one of the following formats (Note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below.):
EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as "graphics".
TIFF: Colour or greyscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (colour or greyscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.
DOC, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications please supply "as is".


Please do not:
• Supply embedded graphics in your wordprocessor (spreadsheet, presentation) document;
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
•Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.
All figures, charts and diagrams are to be referred to as "Figures''(abbreviated to "Fig.") and should be numbered consecutively in the order they are referred to in the text.
If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable colour figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in colour on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article.

Table should if possible be so constructed as to be intelligible without reference to the text, every table and column being provided with a heading, and should be suitable for direct reproduction. Units of measurement must always be clearly indicated. Unless it is essential to the argument, tables should summarize results by an accepted method of expression, e.g. standard deviation (S.D. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article (particularly in figures). .

PROOFS
One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post). Elsevier now sends PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 available free from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs. The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70win If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail, or by post.
Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.

AUTHOR ENQUIRIES
For enquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission where available) please visit this journal's homepage at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jneumeth. You can track accepted articles at http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle and set up e-mail alerts to inform you of when an article's status has changed, as well as copyright information, frequently asked questions and more. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, are provided after registration of an article for publication.

OFFPRINTS
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with free e-offprints, in the form 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.

Additional paper offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.

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 whatsoever for the consequences of any inaccurate or misleading data, opinion or statement.