Editorial Message ================= *Neurosciences journal is now in its 23rd year and since its establishment the journal has been improved in the contents, quality and the circulation around the world*. *In 2017, we invited all the local societies related to neurosciences field to set an agreement between the journal and the society. The society should contribute to the journal scientifically and the journal will be the official journal to the society in return. We congratulate both Pan Arab Union of Neurological Societies and Saudi Association of Neurological Surgery to be the affiliated societies in our journal and we are looking forward for more contribution*. *In 2018, we aim to increase the number of issues to meet the increased load of manuscripts. Our objective is to enrich the scientific Neuroscience material presented by the journal with important topic reviews and regular neuroscience quizzes to achieve high citations. We will continue to promote our new web-based manuscript submission interface; strive to reduce the time from received to acceptance and acceptance to publication to no more than 3 to 4 months each; attend regional conferences, and participate in academic activities to encourage submission of high quality articles; and commission our best reviewers to write good articles and encourage editorial board members to contribute material for a regular editorial feature on topical issues. The journal also is introducing a new look, and a new logo. We also change the layout of the journal. We also plan for a web based manuscript submission interface system*. *The journal started the implementation of CARE Case Report Guideline1 as a mandatory requirement for case report submissions.1 Prior to submission, authors should read the CARE Checklist and write the article following the guideline’s essential requirements. This hopes to raise the clinical value of case reports published*. *We are also conducting a regular critical auditing to the performance of the Journal. We are very meticulous with regards to the accuracy of the editing; medical writing is different from other professional writing, an excellent scientific experiment with novel ideas may still be rejected due to poor writing. Most authors in this region have difficulty in incorporating the objective, methods and knowledge in a proper English language*. *The editors observed that poor language quality is one of the factors that delays the peer review process. Occasionally, reviewers were unable to assess the paper due to poor writing. Language should not be a barrier in scientific publication especially for non-native English speakers. Subsequently, articles with language deficiencies also take significant time in the editing stage and delay the publication process. To overcome this, we strongly suggest that prior to submission, authors should have their articles edited for correct use of grammar, syntax, flow and clarity and submit only once the language has been improved. As a pre-submission requirement, strict compliance shall be observed*. ![Figure 1](http://nsj.org.sa/https://nsj.org.sa/content/nsj/23/1/1/F1.medium.gif) [Figure 1](http://nsj.org.sa/content/23/1/1/F1) Figure 1 Number and type of manuscripts processed for the year 2017. *The discoverability and accessibility of scientific content to various relevant platforms is very important in today’s digital age. We take this time to announce the indexing of Neurosciences Journal in Cengage. Cengage Company is a global leader with thousands of partner libraries around the world and has a large digital archive of research databases, reference books, eBooks and more. With the recent inclusion in this database, we anticipate enhanced visibility and accessibility of our articles*. *In 2017, we received a total number of 159 manuscripts, with an average rejection rate of 27%. Reasons for rejection included papers out the scope of the journal, of low scientific quality, not meeting the requirements of the journal, authors failing to submit the revisions and other necessary requirements, and duplicate publication. However, over 4 issues of 2017, we published a total number of 55 articles which include: 21 originals, 1 editorial, 5 reviews, 2 systematic reviews, 12 case reports, 2 clinical notes, 6 brief communications, 2 correspondences, 1 clinical practice guidelines and 3 MCQs. The average processing time from received to acceptance was 3.35 (1-10) months, mode=2 months, 3.28 (1-8) months from acceptance to publication and 6.63 months from received to publications (3-15) months mode=6 months. Fifty-three percent of published articles were from KSA, with 7% from Turkey, 15% from China, 4% from Iraq and 4% from Jordan. The remaining 17% of published articles we received from UK, Germany, Oman, India, Iran, Nigeria, and Pakistan*. *We extend our thanks to the Editorial and Advisory Board Members for their significant contributions to maintaining the standards of the journal, and we look forward to their important continued role in achieving our goals for 2018. We would like to thank the outgoing Advisory Board member (Mohamed Tariq) who had now finished his term and would like to welcome Brahim Tabarki and Joseph Lamanna to the Advisory Board. We also extend our thanks to the outgoing Editorial Board members. We are honored they have agreed to join the board, and their individual contributions will be of great value to the journal. We continue the international diversity of members that the current board offers. We hope all our readers continue to benefit from the published material, and we extend our sincerest thanks to our authors, readers, reviewers, and board members, and wish all a successful year*. *Waleed Khoja* ***Associate Editor*** *Khalid Hundallah* ***Associate Editor*** *Our thanks also go to the following reviewers, who have participated in the excellent review of manuscripts and books for the year 2017*. Abdulrahman Jafar Sabbagh Afif Hentati Ahmed Alfares *Ahmed Ammar Ajay Panwar Ali Genc Ali Kitis Ali Omrani Alireza Majdi Allan Coates Amal Bakry Abdul-Sattar Antonio Montinaro Atilla Ozcan Ozdemir Avanti Dey Bassam Bassam Bassem Yamout Berrin Gunaydin *Brahim Tabarki Melaiki Carlos Hernandez Giron Cavit Boz Christoph Helmstaedter Clare Brown Claudia Christina Hilt Pfleger Cynthia Rothblum-Oviatt Dawn Simpson Denchai Laiwattana Dengue Alcy Torres Eduardo Espinet Coll Edvard Ehler Eiichiro Nagata Emili Montserrat Ezequiel Uribe Faisal Alotaibi Fatma Yesim Klingberg Federico Abreu Calderon Fenghua Chen Frank Witter Hasn Karsen Hernadez Giron Carlos Hussein A Algahtanin Irene Navalpotro Gomez Jameelah Saeedi James Balogun Jerome Engel Jesus Rivera-Navarro Jihad Inshasi Joao Pedro Marto Johannes Haberle Johannes Honekopp Joji Inamasu Jorgen Alving *Joseph C. LaManna Julian Little Karthik Babu Khalid Al-Quliti Kuhn Anna Luisa Mahmoud Fawzi Maja Rogic Vidakovic Mandy Maredza Marecel Marcikic Mashahiro Yuasa Mathias Zink Mcy De Wit Mehmet Akif Topcuoglu Miao Sun Michael Ivan Mohammad Ali Sahraian Mohammad Ehlayel Mohammad Kabiraj Mohammed Almakhlafi Mohammed Jan Mohammed Saadah Murat Gulekin Murat Terzi Myoung Soo Kim Nader Honjol Norito Kokubun Norlinah Mohamed Ibrahim Olga Lidia Vera-Lastra Patricia Rzezak Raed AlRoughani Raphael Schiffmann Rashmi Shah Ravi Kanojia Riaz Ahmed Syed Richard S McLachlan Rigmor Jensen Robert Gaiser Roberta La Piana Saeed Bohlega SallyAnn Wakeford Sami Harik Sarah Griffiths Shaimaa Abdelsattar Mohammad Simona Lattanzi Slobodan Vlajkovic Sonja Hochmeister Sophia Hulbert Stephanie Mathieson Steve Simpson Subhi Mahmood Alghanem Sumit Thakar Tarek Mirdad Tengfei Wang Theodore Nash Tiziana Nava Tomasz Szmuda Wolfgang Herrmann Wouter Vanderplasschen Venkatesan Nagarajan Vykuntaraju Gowda Xisngyun Li Yan Yin Yavuz Samanci ## Footnotes * * *Reviewers who reviewed 3 or more articles for the year 2017* * Copyright: © Neurosciences Neurosciences is an Open Access journal and articles published are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (CC BY-NC). Readers may copy, distribute, and display the work for non-commercial purposes with the proper citation of the original work. ## Reference 1. CARE. Case reports guidelines, Available from URL: [http://www.care-statement.org/](http://www.care-statement.org/). [Updated 2018; Accessed 2017 November 14].