Broad Scope and New Content

JNeurosci aims to represent the diversity of scientific topics, welcoming contributions from the broad field including (but not limited to) molecular, cellular, developmental, systems, behavioral, cognitive, computational, integrative, and clinical neuroscience. We hope to provide a publication home for as many scientists in our community as possible.

In 2025, we will start publishing special collections related to a common topic (https://www.jneurosci.org/content/special-collections). Typically, these collections will encompass 4–8 articles on a clearly defined, focused theme. Collections may include original research reports, any feature article type (e.g., reviews and Viewpoints), or any mixture of both. They will be led by one or more guest editors, who will oversee the peer review process supported by the Editorial Board and journal staff. These collections will enrich our content and give our community an opportunity to directly participate in and diversify the editorial process. If you are interested in organizing a special collection, please contact us.

Fast and Efficient Review Process

Submitted papers that underwent peer review in 2024 had an average review time of about 40 days. Our aim is to optimize the process further, so that this time will be even shorter in the future. Except for very rare exceptions, we provide feedback from two (and only two) reviewers and resolve differences in opinions among reviewers through consultations rather than by involving third or fourth reviewers, which lengthens the review process and can make the revision process onerous for our authors.

Editorial Feedback and Flexible Decision Types

Our editors are highly engaged, providing feedback and guidance to our authors throughout the review process. Upon submission, each paper will be carefully evaluated by at least two editors regarding its suitability for JNeurosci and whether it should undergo peer review. After receiving the reviews, our editors will weigh in and provide guidance for the reviewers’ requests for revisions. We have also developed unique editorial decision types tailored to maximize authors’ success during peer review. For example, if an editor identifies missing analyses during the initial evaluation that they think will compromise a positive outcome of peer review, we send the paper back to the authors for revisions before peer review.

Enhancing Transparency of the Peer Review Process

Late in 2023, we introduced a new open peer review model at JNeurosci. The goal is to increase the transparency, fairness, and accountability of the peer review process by offering to publish the anonymized reviews and the authors’ responses to the critiques along with the article. In our model, reviewers and authors can opt out of open peer review at their discretion. We publish as much review information as possible, while also respecting the wishes of the participants for confidentiality where needed. The peer review record can be found in a tab labeled accordingly on the paper's web record. This particular model also provides us with the opportunity to track the opt-out choice as a measure of our community's reaction. We are happy to report that the majority of our author and reviewer community has embraced the open peer review model, and we will share a detailed analysis of our first year's data early in 2025.

Breaking Down Submission Barriers

Transferring manuscript submissions from one journal to the next can be a tedious process. We aim to make this process as easy as possible by breaking down submission barriers. In this spirit, we are discontinuing JNeurosci's Extended Data policy and replacing it with a new supplemental material policy, more like the policies shared by other journals. Extended data was time-consuming to implement and format accurately, and our new supplemental material policy is intended to simplify the process. The essence of a JNeurosci paper remains a thorough and well-presented, high-quality study with no restrictions on the number of figures and minimal restrictions on text length. Therefore, all essential data and analysis will continue to be contained within the main figures and text, including controls needed to interpret the main results. Supplementary material can be presented to support the findings in the main text in secondary and complementary ways. These materials do not need to be linked to figures or other display items in the paper. For the full policy on supplemental materials, see the Information for Authors (https://www.jneurosci.org/content/information-authors).

As another example, please know that you do not need to reformat your manuscript for an initial submission according to JNeurosci-specific requirements. Simply send us a PDF file of what you have previously edited. If the submission looks promising for publication in JNeurosci, we will work with you to reformat your manuscript according to the journal's style later in the process.

Supporting Early Career Researchers

Fostering the careers of early career researchers (ECRs) is an important goal for JNeurosci and the Society for Neuroscience, as reflected in several well-established opportunities provided such as the reviewer mentor program (https://www.jneurosci.org/rmp) and Journal Club (https://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneurosci-journal-club). We are very happy to now celebrate yet another ECR initiative: the first year of our ECR Advisory Board (https://www.jneurosci.org/content/ecr-board). The Board is composed of 12 members who represent all ECR stages, including graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and nontenured assistant professors (or the equivalent). We thank the ECR Board members for their service and for giving us the opportunity to learn from their diverse and fresh perspectives. Together, we will develop additional ECR initiatives in 2025 that will continue to center on supporting specific needs of and providing opportunities for ECRs in scientific publishing.

Listening to and Learning From Our Community

It is important for us to stay connected with our community of authors and reviewers. This can be a challenge given that we process more than 2,000 submissions each year, work with thousands of reviewers, and serve an even greater number of authors. In 2024, we started an annual virtual town hall meeting as a mechanism for active communication with our community, so that we can listen to your questions and learn from your experience to serve you better. You can watch the recording of the event on demand: https://neuronline.sfn.org/professional-development/jneurosci-town-hall. Given that the town hall was well received, we will offer it again in 2025.

Society journals are the backbone of our community. The SfN journals offer affordable publishing options for both members and nonmembers with attractive access options; JNeurosci makes all articles freely available online 6 months after publication. SfN journals are run by professional scientists, who have neither financial interests nor aspire to set “fashion trends” in neuroscience. We, as editors, are simply proud to support our authors and fellow scientists in the scientific publishing process. We couldn't do any of this without the thoughtful and diligent feedback provided by our extensive network of expert reviewers, and we would like to extend a very special thank you to them (https://www.jneurosci.org/content/reviewer-recognition). If you wish to share your experience at JNeurosci, or if you have any thoughts or comments, please do not hesitate to reach out to me by email (kastner_eic{at}sfn.org).

On behalf of the Editorial Board and journal staff, I wish you all the very best for a new year full of discovery and exploration.

In science,

Sabine