Brain and Neuroscience Advances
Read our content here.
This journal is the official journal of the British Neuroscience Association.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Why publish in BNA?
• Broad scope, multidisciplinary journal
• High profile, expert international editorial board and high quality peer review
• International gold open access journal with no barriers to access
• Credibility initiatives to support the reproducibility, replicability and reliability of neuroscience research
• Time from acceptance to publication is 20 days
Open access article processing charge (APC) information
The article processing charge (APC) is $1125 discounted from the full rate of $1520. Members of the British Neuroscience Association will receive a 50% discount off the full rate.
The article processing charge (APC) is payable when a manuscript is accepted after peer review, before it is published. The APC is subject to taxes where applicable. Please see further details here.
Submission information
Submit your manuscript today at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bna
Please see the Submission Guidelines tab for more information on how to submit your article to the journal.
Contact
Please direct any queries to Philippa.stevens@sagepub.co.uk
Brain and Neuroscience Advances is the official peer-reviewed, open access journal of The British Neuroscience Association, the largest UK organisation representing all aspects of neuroscience from ion channels to whole animal behaviour to neuroscience applications in the clinic.
The mission of the journal is to promote, on a multidisciplinary basis, the study of the development, structure and function of the neurosciences in health and disease. The journal publishes original research papers and reviews from all fields and disciplines of neuroscience, including molecular, cellular, systems, behavioural, and cognitive investigations. The journal welcomes submissions in basic, translational and/or clinical neuroscience. Research papers should present novel, empirical results that are expected to be of interest to a broad spectrum of neuroscientists working in the laboratory, field or clinic.
Once launched, the Journal will be a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
| Kate Baker | Cambridge University, UK |
| Jeffrey W Dalley | Cambridge University, UK |
| Dr James Ainge | University of St Andrews, UK |
| Professor David Bannerman | University of Oxford, UK |
| Professor Rebecca Elliot | University of Manchester, UK |
| Professor Sarah Guthrie | University of Sussex, UK |
| Dr Jess Nithianantharajah | Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Australia |
| Professor Paul Phillips | University of Washington, USA |
| Professor Clifton Ragsdale | University of Chicago , USA |
| Professor Narender Ramnani | Royal Holloway University of London, UK |
| Professor Linda Richards | Washington University School of Medicine, USA |
| Dr Peter Rudebeck | Icahn School of Medicine, USA |
| Professor Clea Warburton | University of Bristol, UK |
| Professor Cliff Abraham | The University of Otago, New Zealand |
| Professor Kent Berridge | University of Michigan, USA |
| Dr Jean-François Brunet | IBENS, France |
| Professor Victoria Chapman | The University of Nottingham, UK |
| Professor Alain Chedotal | Institut de la Vision, France |
| Professor Graham Collingridge | University of Bristol, UK |
| Professor Peter Dayan | Gatsby Computational Neuroscience, UK |
| Professor Kenji Doya | Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan |
| Professor Claire Gillan | Trinity College Dublin, Ireland |
| Professor Rita Goldstein | Icahn School of Medicine, USA |
| Professor Sylvie Granon | Université Paris-Sud, France |
| Professor Seth Grant | The University of Edinburgh, UK |
| Professor Riitta Hari | Aalto University, Finland |
| Professor Rik Henson | University of Cambridge, UK |
| Professor Casper Hoogenraad | Universiteit Utrecht, Netherlands |
| Professor Oliver Howes | Imperial College London, UK |
| Professor Anthony Isles | Cardiff University, UK |
| Professor Heidi Johansen-Berg | University of Oxford, UK |
| Dr Matt Jones | University of Bristol, UK |
| Professor Sheena Josselyn | The University of Toronto, Canada |
| Professor Andrew Lawrence | University of Melbourne, Australia |
| Professor Meng Li | Cardiff University, UK |
| Dr Elisabeth Murray | NIMH, USA |
| Professor David Nutt | Imperial College London, UK |
| Professor Shane O’Mara | Trinity College Dublin, Ireland |
| Professor Mike Owen | Cardiff University, UK |
| Professor Trevor Robbins | University of Cambridge, UK |
| Professor John Rothwell | University College London, UK |
| Dr. Guillaume Rousselet | University of Glasgow, School of Psychology and Neuroscience |
| Professor Barbara Sahakian | University of Cambridge |
| Professor Lisa Saksida | Western University, Canada |
| Professor Martin Sarter | University of Michigan, USA |
| Dr Jon Simons | University of Cambridge, UK |
| Professor Trevor Smart | University College London, UK |
| Professor Tara Spires-Jones | The University of Edinburgh, UK |
| Professor Jane Taylor | Yale School of Medicine, USA |
| Professor Arno Villringer | Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Germany |
| Dr Catherine Winstanley | University of British Columbia, Canada |
| Professor Daniel Wolpert | Columbia University, USA |
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
Please read the guidelines below then visit the journal’s submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/BNA to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Brain and Neuroscience Advances will be reviewed.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.
- Open Access
- Article processing charge (APC)
- Article Types
- Editorial policies
4.1 Peer Review Policy
4.2 Authorship
4.3 Acknowledgements
4.4 Funding
4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
4.6 Research ethics and patient consent
4.7 Clinical Trials
4.8 Reporting guidelines
4.9 Open Science Framework Badges - Publishing policies
5.1 Publication ethics
5.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
5.3 Permissions
5.4 Preprints - Preparing your manuscript
6.1 Word processing formats
6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
6.3 Supplementary material
6.4 Reference style
6.5 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
7.1 ORCID
7.2 Information required for completing your submission
7.3 Corresponding author contact details
7.4 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
8.1 Sage Production
8.2 Continuous publication
8.3 Promoting your article - Further information
Brain and Neuroscience Advances is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Each article accepted by peer review is made freely available online immediately upon publication, is published under a Creative Commons license and will be hosted online in perpetuity. Publication costs of the journal are covered by the collection of article processing charges which are paid by the funder, institution or author of each manuscript upon acceptance. There is no charge for submitting a paper to the journal.
For general information on open access at Sage please visit the Open Access page or view our Open Access FAQs.
2. Article processing charge (APC)
If, after peer review, your manuscript is accepted for publication, a one-time article processing charge (APC) is payable. This APC covers the cost of publication and ensures that your article will be freely available online in perpetuity under a Creative Commons licence.
The article processing charge (APC) is $1125 discounted from the full rate of $1520. Members of the British Neuroscience Association will receive a 50% discount off the full rate.
*If the paying party is based in the European Union, to comply with European law, value added tax (VAT) must be added to the APC. Providing a VAT registration number will allow an institution to be exempt from paying this tax, except for UK institutions.
Original Article: Original research, including both basic and clinical science and controlled trials.
Abstracts should be a maximum of 250 words and should be structured appropriately. The introduction should not exceed 600 words and the Discussion 1,500 words. There is no word limit on Methods and Results however the manuscript’s readability may suffer if these sections are excessively long. Authors should therefore consider what data and analyses may be appropriate for supplemental information. There is no limit to the number of references.
Reviews: literature reviews, systematic reviews, market reviews and critical reviews will be accepted for consideration. Reviews must contain no more than 5,000 words. There are no limits to figures or references, but authors are advised that the Editorial Board will not accept poorly-focused reviews.
Short Reports: Short reports allow authors to publish the results from a small number of experiments, provided that the results are novel or of high importance. Findings should be clear and of interest to most readers. Intended as a short format, these articles should be a maximum of 2,000 words and 2 figures and 10 references.
Guidelines paper: Guidelines are commissioned by the Editor-in-Chief. For more information please enquire with bna@sagepub.com
Registered Reports: These submissions are reviewed in two stages. In Stage 1, a study proposal is considered for publication prior to data collection. Stage 1 submissions should include the complete Introduction, Method, and Proposed Analyses, as well as the results of pilot studies, if available. High-quality proposals will be accepted in principle before data collection commences. Once the study is completed, the author will finish the article including Results and Discussion sections (Stage 2). Publication of Stage 2 submissions is guaranteed as long as the approved Stage 1 protocol is followed and conclusions are appropriate. Full details can be found here.
Journal Club articles provide short, scholarly review of recently published neuroscience articles, written by graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, or the equivalent. Articles should consist of a short overview of the topic and questions addressed in the reviewed paper; a description of the key findings; and a brief discussion of the significance of the paper. The article should extend beyond what was stated in the original article, e.g. present a broader interpretation of the results in the context of work. It should not focus on the author’s own work or include new or additional results.
Journal Club submissions should be concise and are therefore limited to 1,500 words and a maximum of 10 references. Please include a title page with: title, citation of article being reviewed, list of authors and affiliations (graduate students’ affiliations should be listed as the graduate program or department), corresponding author and contact information. Journal Club articles must be submitted within 2 months of the publication of the reviewed paper.
Following a preliminary triage to eliminate submissions unsuitable for Brain and Neuroscience Advances all papers are sent out for review. The covering letter is important. To help the Editor in his preliminary evaluation, please indicate why you think the paper suitable for publication. If your paper should be considered for fast-track publication, please explain why.] The journal’s policy is to have manuscripts reviewed by two expert reviewers.
Brain and Neuroscience Advances utilizes a single-anonymize peer review process in which the reviewer’s name and information is withheld from the author. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief who then makes the final decision.
Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.
The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:
- Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
- Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
- Approved the version to be published,
- Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.
Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.
Brain and Neuroscience Advances strongly encourages authors to include a statement of author contribution using the CRediT taxonomy.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
4.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
4.3.2 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.
Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.
Brain and Neuroscience Advances requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
It is the policy of Brain and Neuroscience Advances to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.
Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.
For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations.
4.6 Research ethics and patient consent
Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki.
Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.
For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.
Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative.
Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants
All research involving animals submitted for publication must be approved by an ethics committee with oversight of the facility in which the studies were conducted. The Journal has adopted the ARRIVE guidelines.
Brain and Neuroscience Advances conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrolment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.
The relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines should be followed depending on the type of study. For example, all randomized controlled trials submitted for publication should include a completed CONSORT flow chart as a cited figure and the completed CONSORT checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should include the completed PRISMA flow chart as a cited figure and the completed PRISMA checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. The EQUATOR wizard can help you identify the appropriate guideline.
Other resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives
4.9 Open Science Framework badges
The Editorial Board acknowledges the importance of research data availability as an integral part of the research and verification process for academic journal articles. We strongly urge all authors to share their data, analysis code and materials.
If you wish to apply for Open Data/Open Materials OSF badges, please ensure you mention this in your cover letter, complete the disclosure form and include it with your submission. Any required data/materials should be hosted on a publically accessible website in a format that is time-stamped, immutable, and permanent. For more information about the badges and how to earn them, please see the OSF Wiki.
Note that for regular articles, Brain Neuroscience Advances only offers Open Data and Open Materials badges. Preregistration badges are currently for Registered Reports only. Please refer to our more detailed Registered Report guidelines.
Brain and Neuroscience Advances requests all authors submitting any primary data used in their research articles alongside their article submissions to be published in the online version of the journal, or provide detailed information in their articles on how the data can be obtained. This information should include links to third-party data repositories or detailed contact information for third-party data sources. Data available only on an author-maintained website will need to be loaded onto either the journal’s platform or a third-party platform to ensure continuing accessibility. Examples of data types include but are not limited to statistical data files, replication code, text files, audio files, images, videos, appendices, and additional charts and graphs necessary to understand the original research. The editor(s) will also grant exceptions for data that cannot legally or ethically be released. All data submitted should comply with Institutional or Ethical Review Board requirements and applicable government regulations. For further information, please contact the editorial office at bna@sagepub.co.uk.
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.
5.1.1 Plagiarism
Brain and Neuroscience Advances and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
5.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published, it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
5.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Brain and Neuroscience Advances publishes manuscripts under Creative Commons licenses. The standard license for the journal is Creative Commons by Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC), which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. For more information, you are advised to visit Sage's OA licenses page
Alternative license arrangements are available, for example, to meet particular funder mandates, made at the author’s request.
Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
Brain Neuroscience and Advances supports the submission of manuscripts posted on community preprint servers such as arXiv and bioRxiv. We do, however, ask you to respect the following summary of our policies:
- Authors must declare prior publication or distribution to the Editor upon submission
- Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the pre-print server while it is being peer reviewed
The published version may be posted after publication, but must include a full attribution (including DOI, volume numbers and a link to the article published on the BNA website). Full author archiving policy is available here.
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.
Brain and Neuroscience Advances adheres to the Sage Harvard reference style. Please review the guidelines on Sage Harvard to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Harvard output file here.
6.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Brain and Neuroscience Advances is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/BNA to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
7.2 Informtion required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
7.3 Corresponding author contact details
Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including email, mailing address and telephone numbers. Academic affiliations are required for all co-authors. These details should be presented separately to the main text of the article to facilitate anonymous peer review.
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
8. On acceptance and publication
If your paper is accepted for publication after peer review, you will first be asked to complete the contributor’s publishing agreement. Once your manuscript files have been check for Sage Production, the corresponding author will be asked to pay the article processing charge (APC) via a payment link. Once the APC has been processed, your article will be prepared for publication and can appear online within an average of 20 days. Please note that no production work will occur on your paper until the APC has been received.
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit, or by email to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
One of the many benefits of publishing your research in an open access journal is the speed to publication. With no page count constraints, your article will be published online in a fully citable form with a DOI number as soon as it has completed the production process. At this time it will be completely free to view and download for all.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Brain and Neuroscience Advances editorial office as follows: