Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience publishes original research of exceptional significance or novelty from those areas of the neurosciences indicated by the broadest interpretation of the journal's title. As part of the submission process, authors are asked to state why they consider their paper is of such significance or novelty.
Furthermore, since rapid peer-review and publication of such research is of paramount importance, extended cycles of article revision and re-review will not be entered into; it is anticipated that authors will fully address all referees' comments during the course of a single revision of their original manuscript.


The Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium

Molecular and Cellular Neuroscienceis 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 Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience and indicate that the referees' reports from the first journal be made available to the Editors of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience.

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 Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience. If an author does not wish for this to happen, the manuscript can be submitted to Molecular and Cellular Neurosciencewithout 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 Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience's specification and submit the paper to Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience 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 Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience the title of the first journal submitted to and the manuscript ID that was given by that journal. The editorial office of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience will request the referees' reports from the first journal.

The Editors of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience 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.

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts must be submitted through the Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience online submission and review Web site (http://ees.elsevier.com/ymcne/). Authors are requested to submit the text, tables, and artwork in electronic form to this address. In an accompanying letter, authors should state that the manuscript, or parts of it, have not been and will not be submitted elsewhere for publication. Please submit, with the manuscript, the names and addresses of at least three potential Referees. You may also mention persons who you would prefer not to review your paper.

Language Editing:

Prior to submission, authors for whom English is not their first language may find it helpful to use a language and copyediting service such as that available through http://www.elsevier.com.locate/languagepolishing or may contact authorsupport@elsevier.com for more information. Please note that 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 & Conditions http://www.elsevier.com//termsconditions.

Submission items include a cover letter, suggested reviewers, the manuscript (including title page, abstract, manuscript text, references, and table/figure legends), tables, and figures. The title of the paper should be brief; no longer than 100 characters in length, and should capture and communicate the key message of your research to a broader audience. To aid this, abbreviations, unless familiar to a broad audience, should be avoided. Revised manuscripts should also be accompanied by a unique file (separate from the covering letter) with responses to reviewers' comments. The preferred order of files is as follows: cover letter, suggested reviewers, response to reviews (revised manuscripts only), manuscript file(s), table(s), figure(s). Files should be labeled with appropriate and descriptive file names (e.g., SmithText.doc, Fig1.eps, Table3.doc). Upload text, tables and graphics as separate files. Do not import figures or tables into the text document. For in-depth information about submitting eectronic artwork visit http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions

Authors who are unable to provide an electronic version or have other circumstances that prevent online submission must contact the San Diego Editorial Office prior to submission to discuss alternate options. The Publisher and Editors regret that they are not able to consider submissions that do not follow these procedures.


MCN Editorial Office
525 B Street, Suite 1900
San Diego, CA 92101-4495, USA
E-mail: mcn@elsevier.com

Manuscripts are accepted for review with the understanding that no substantial portion of the study has been published or is under consideration for publication elsewhere and that its submission for publication has been approved by all of the authors and by the institution where the work was carried out. Manuscripts that do not meet the general criteria or standards for publication in Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience will be immediately returned to the authors, without detailed review.

Ethics:

When human subjects are used, manuscripts must be accompanied by a statement that the experiments were undertaken with the understanding and written consent of each subject, with the approval of the appropriate local ethics committee, and in compliance with national legislation and the Code of Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) [ http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm]. When experimental animals are used, the materials and methods section must clearly indicate that adequate measures were taken to minimise pain or discomfort, and that the experiments were conducted in accordance with international standards on animal welfare as well as being compliant with local and national regulations. Studies are expected to be compliant with minimal standards as defined by the European Communities Council Directive of 24 November 1986 (86/609/EEC)

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to transfer copyright (for more information on copyright, see http://www.elsevier.com). This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. A letter will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript. A form facilitating transfer of copyright will be provided after acceptance.

If material from other copyrighted works is 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 Global Rights Department, P.O. Box 800, Oxford OX5 1DX, UK; phone: (+44) 1865 843830, fax: (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail: permissions@elsevier.com.

Reviews. Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience reviews are solicited by the Editors-in-Chief.

Preparation of manuscript

Manuscripts should be double-spaced throughout; pages should be numbered consecutively and organized as follows:

The Title Page (p.1) should contain the article title, authors' names and complete affiliations, footnotes to the title, and the address for manuscript correspondence (including telephone and fax numbers and an e-mail address).

The Abstract (p.2) must be a single paragraph that summarizes the main findings of the paper in less than 150 words.

The Introduction should be as concise as possible, without subheadings.

Results and Discussion may be combined and may be organized into subheadings.

Experimental Methods should be sufficiently detailed to enable the experiments to be reproduced.

Acknowledgments should be brief and should precede the references.

References should be cited in the text by name and date. Only articles that have been published or are in press should be included in the references. Unpublished results or personal communications should be cited as such in the text. Please note the following examples:

Bosworth, J., Bower, R., 2000. Axons and the Eph receptor. Mol. Cell. Neurosci. 15, 473–492.

Paxinos, G., Ashwell, K.W.S., Tork, I., 1994. Atlas of the Developing Rat Nervous System, 2nd ed. Academic Press, San Diego.

Vale, R.D., Banker, G., Hall, Z.W., 1992. The neuronal cytoskeleton. In: Hall, Z.W. (Ed.), An Introduction to Molecular Neurobiology. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA, pp. 247–280.

Figures. Number figures consecutively with Arabic numerals. Please visit our Web site at http://authors.elsevier.com/artwork for detailed instructions on preparing electronic artwork.

Color Figures 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 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. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions [Please note: Because of technical complications that can arise in 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 files corresponding to all the colour illustrations].

Authors should note that a request to revert from full colour to colour only in the electronic publication at the stage of typesetting and proof correction, will require separate editorial agreement, with possible re-review if necessary, and may significantly delay publication of your manuscript.

Tables should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals in order of appearance in the text. Each table should be given a short descriptive title directly above it, with essential footnotes below.

Supplementary material:

Electronic supplementary material is now accepted 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.

Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author. To avoid delay in publication, only necessary changes should be made, and proofs and manuscript should be returned promptly.

Offprints:

The corresponding author at no cost, will be provided with a pdf offprint.

Distribution of material

Authors who publish as research article in Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience must be prepared to freely distribute to academic researchers for their own use any cell lines, DNA clones, monoclonal antibodies, or genetically engineered mice described in the article. Nucleic acid and protein sequences, as well as crystallographic coordinates, must be deposited in the appropriate databases.

Author enquiries:

For enquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission where available) please visit this journal's EES page. 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.

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.