Focus and Scope

Neural Circuits is a peer-reviewed, multi-disciplinary journal that publishes new findings in all aspects of the nervous system, normal or pathological, that shed light on the working of neural circuits. The journal welcomes studies ranging from molecular to cellular, network, behavioral and cognitive levels, and different approaches including experimental, theoretical, computational, modelling, engineering and clinical are all catered. It will consider for publication any study that is methodologically sound, including short reports, case studies and research techniques. Review articles are also welcome. The editors will try to give as much constructive feedback as possible to authors for improvement of their manuscripts.

Section Policies

Original Research Article

Original research article should contain completely new principal research testifying major contributions to the field. The study should represent new findings or discoveries in a subject area that were not published before. The report may contain significant findings, methodology importance and considerable evidence to the conclusions.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Review Article

Review article is summarized descriptions of recent findings and significant developments at particular subject area of research considering the Journal’s scope. They should include critical assessments of novel technologies, evaluation of subject advancement, elucidate unresolved questions, comparative analysis with a substantial coverage of previous works and highlight future prospects. Although there are no restrictions with the length and content of a review, authors should consider drawing reader’s attention and interest with quality information.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

The editorial workflow below applies to all manuscript received from Open Journal System (OJS) will undergo a proper course of double blind peer review process.

Once a manuscript is received, the manuscript is first checked by the managing editor from the journal’s editorial office for the plagiarism by iThenticate as well as the aims and scope to ensure the quality of the content before release to go through the normal peer review procedure. Once this is done, the manuscript is sent to journal’s Editor-in-Chief and/or Associate Editor with the recommendation report for final confirmation on the decision to send for peer review. Minimum of 2 reviewers shall be assigned by Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editor who does not have any conflict of interest with any of the manuscript’s authors.

The reviewers will then submit their reports on the manuscripts along with their recommendation of one of the following actions to the Editor:

• Accept Submission (with no revision required)
• Revisions Required (accpeted for publication after minor revisions)
• Resubmit for Review (major revisions required)
• Decline Submission (not suitable for publication)

When all reviewers have submitted their reports, to provide recommendations to Editor-in-Chief on one of the following editorial recommendations:

• Accept Submission
• Revisions Required
• Resubmit for Review
• Decline Submission

If the Editor-in-Chief recommends “Accepted for publication with no revisions required,” the manuscript will return back to author to change format and reference style according to EnPress’s requirements. Once the revised copy is received, it will be assigned to in-house editorial team for the final version of editing. Once this process is done, the authors will be formally informed of the decision of acceptance, and the manuscript will first be published online as status of Article in Press.

If the Editor-in-Chief recommends “Accepted for publication with minor revisions,” the authors are informed to revise the manuscript based on the comments and suggestions suggested by the reviewers. The Editor-in-Chief reviews the revised manuscript after the minor changes completed by the authors. Once the Editor-in-Chief is satisfied with the final manuscript, the manuscript will be fully accepted for publication.

If the Editor-in-Chief recommends “Major revisions required,” the authors are expected to revise their manuscript in accordance with comments made by Editor-in-Chief and to resubmit their manuscript in a given time frame. Once the revised manuscript is resubmitted, the original reviewers are asked to conduct second review. The reviewers make a recommendation, which can be “Accepted for publication,” “Minor changes required,” “Major changes required,” or “Decline.” Then, the Editor-in-Chief can make a final editorial decision.

If the Editor-in-Chief decides declining the manuscript, the decline is immediate.  The author would be informed the decline reason(s).

The editorial workflow granted full authority to Editor-in-Chief to reject any manuscript due to the following reasons:

1. Out of scope
2. Poor quality
3. Inappropriateness of results

The peer-review process practice by this journal is double blinded; in which, the reviewers and authors are made to not knowing the information of each other. This is to ensure a fair, transparent and high quality non-biased peer-review process of every manuscript submitted to the journal.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Editorial Policies

A manuscript would not be accepted if it has been published or is currently under consideration for publication in any other journals. The author will need to notify the editorial team if the data in their submission has been presented in conferences.

After acceptance, the Publisher will have the right to edit the work for the original edition and for any revision.

Authorship

Authorship should be limited to people who have contributed substantially to the work. Authors must indicate their specific contributions to the published work. This information should be listed in the manuscript under the section ‘Author Contribution’. Examples of contributions include: designed research, performed research, contributed new reagents or analytic tools, analyzed data, wrote the paper.

For more information on submission’s format, please refer to the ‘Author Guidelines’ link accessible from the ‘About’ button at the top row of this page.

The corresponding author should be clearly indicated for all manuscripts submitted. A maximum of two corresponding authors are allowed for the responsibilities associated. The corresponding author(s) is responsible for:

• Obtaining permission from all the authors mentioned in the manuscript
• Ensuring adherence to all editorial and submission policies and for any communications and actions that may be necessary after publication
• Including written permission from the authors of the work concerned for any mention of any unpublished material included in the manuscript, e.g. data from manuscripts-in-press, personal communication, or work in preparation.

Conflict of Interest

The author has to provide the authorization of no conflict with any financial body or funding agency that might influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All authors, members, reviewers and editors must disclose any association that poses a conflict of interest in connection with the manuscript. The corresponding author will be asked to sign a form behalf of all of the authors regarding potential conflicts of interest at the time of acceptance.

Plagiarism

The editorial team does not approve of any plagiarism attempts. iThenticate will be utilized at the editor’s discretion to verify the originality of submitted manuscripts. If plagiarism is detected during the review process the manuscript may be rejected pending the severity of plagiarism. Therefore, if a manuscript uses a text copied directly from another source, this text must be written in quotation marks and the original source must be cited.

Publication Fees

The publication fees for each manuscript accepted for publication is USD 800. This fee is meant to support the open access journal’s associated expenses. The editorial team will have the right to assume that authors submitting their manuscripts for publication consents to paying the publication fee upon acceptance for publication.

Language

All articles must be written in English — preferably American English. SI units should be used. If you are not a native English speaker, you may want to utilize an external or EnPress Publishing’s optional professional language editing service before submitting the final version.

Submission of Revised Manuscripts

Revised manuscripts must contain a detailed point by point response to the comments of the reviewers. The response to reviewers has to be uploaded as a separate file.

Withdrawal of Manuscript

If you withdraw your manuscript after it has been accepted (but not yet published), you will be charged for costs incurred at USD200.

Supporting Information

Authors can include detailed materials and methods in this section to provide a reader to follow the experiments and results. However, the main paper should stand on its own without the SI and should be submitted as a separate file.

Data Processing Policy

Authors are expected to have minimum amount of post-acquisition processing of data. In case of processing; alterations must be applied to the entire image (e.g., brightness, contrast, color balance). Any kind of alteration if being done has to be clearly stated in the figure legend and in Methods section.

Grouping of data (e.g., cropping of images of removal of lanes from gels and bolts) must be made apparent and should be explicitly indicated in the appropriate figure legends. Data comparisons should only be made from comparative experiments, and individual data should not be utilized across multiple figures. If inappropriate image/data manipulation is identified after publication, we reserve the right to ask for the original data and, if that is not satisfactory, to issue a correction or retract the paper, as appropriate.

Waiver Policy

We encourage authors to publish their papers with us and don’t wish the cost of article processing fees to be a barrier especially to authors from the low and lower middle income countries/regions. A range of discounts or waivers are offered to authors who are unable to pay our publication processing fees. Authors can write in to apply for a waiver and requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis.