Editorial Message ================= * Waleed Khoja * Khalid Hundallah * Mashael Al-Askar **T**his year marks the 29th year in which the Neurosciences Journal has continuously published articles. With great pride, we acknowledge our contribution to the scientific community because knowledge is one of the most important components to building a knowledge-based society, and we are proud of the contribution we have made to it. Since the inception of the Neuroscience Journal, our editorial team has dedicated its time and energy to producing high-quality content. A brief history of the beginning of science communication will be provided here, as well as statistics from last year’s Neurosciences Journal. David Bvaster,1 who founded the British Association for the Advancement of Science, provided guidelines for publishing scientific papers so that scientists know where to begin. Science journalism has been considered a form of science communication.2 Depending on how the information is delivered and received, science communication can be divided into 3 categories: traditional journalism, live events, and online interaction. Magazines, journals, newspapers, television, and radio are considered traditional forms of journalism.3 Traditional journalism reached a large audience and was the fastest mode of delivering information. It also generated high-quality work, and its output influenced public direction and reached policymakers. While one-way reinforcement can be used, once science is reported to the media, scientists no longer control the presentation, leading to more misunderstandings. Currently, this type of information is no longer the primary source of information due to technological advancements. Live or face-to-face events provide more interaction than traditional journalism, but live information can reach only a small group of people. Recent technological advances (websites, blogs, and podcasts) have led to online interaction. Online information reaches a mass audience and allows for immediate direct contact between scientists and the public, making science more accessible and controlled. The open science movement has received considerable attention in the 21st century in an effort to make scientific research accessible to everyone in society. In light of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, effective health communication has become more important than ever. The COVID-19 crisis highlighted the importance of scientific communication and prompted the need to assess the quality and validity of research. Today, the development of digital science communication allows for the dissemination of science information, which has increased science’s visibility. The COVID-19 pandemic placed additional pressure on scientists to share their scientific findings as quickly as possible. However, the rapid spread of information can lead to misinformation.4 We have observed an unprecedented level of interaction between decision-makers and scientists due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A study to identify ongoing, emerging communication trends between scientists and policymakers in innovation policy and digitalization revealed three main trends: a need for policy and scientific actors to become more institutionalized and engaged; scientists to practice more open, reliable, and accountable science communication with policymakers; and science communication with policymakers to become more digitalized and visualized.5 During the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization maintained a dashboard providing updated information on COVID19 using visual forms and graphs. The journal’s publishers must follow this transformation by adapting to the rapid growth of information and communication technology in a scientific environment. Authors, readers, and journal reviewers possess significantly different knowledge, desires, and expectations than those of the past. Using digital technologies in publishing has made information accessible anywhere at any time. This increase in information availability has also expanded the global capacity to create data and manuscripts. We are currently developing Neurosciences Journal in accordance with publishing industry innovations and trends. Considering the increasing popularity of social platforms, we encourage sharing audio and video content. We have allowed audio files to be included as supplements in the published articles. In addition to providing the rapid dissemination of new findings, preprint servers allow authors to share their work before submitting it to a journal. However, our journal has neither adopted nor approved of this trend. The use of artificial intelligence provides publishers with a quick, efficient publishing method. The screening of manuscripts, the peer review process, and the typesetting of articles are automated to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the editorial office in producing the issues. ### Google Analytics Google Analytics results show that from January through December 2023, more than 47,000 people worldwide visited our website. Among the top six countries from which the sessions originated, the United States, Saudi Arabia, India, the United Kingdom, China, and the Philippines had the greatest number of sessions. Notably, this finding is consistent with our insights from last year.6 ### Statistics As of 2023, we had an average rejection rate of 37% (**Figure 1**). Various reasons were given for author rejections, including papers outside of the journal’s scope, papers of low scientific quality, papers that did not meet the journal’s requirements, the failure of authors to submit necessary revisions and other requirements, and duplicate publications. The journal published four issues in 2023, with a total of 45 articles, which included 20 original articles, one editorial, 5 reviews, 10 case reports, 2 case series, 4 correspondences, one brief communication, one clinical practice guideline, and one erratum. Approximately 4.4 months are taken on average for submissions to be accepted, 1.3 months are taken on average for acceptance to be published, and 5.7 months are taken on average to publish. Undoubtedly, the implementation of online continuous publications highlights a significant reduction in the publication process. Articles from Saudi Arabia, China, Tunisia, and Austria comprised 79%, 9%, and 6% of the published articles, respectively, while the remaining articles came from Jordan, Kuwait, Korea, India, and Serbia. ![Figure 1](http://nsj.org.sa/https://nsj.org.sa/content/nsj/29/1/1/F1.medium.gif) [Figure 1](http://nsj.org.sa/content/29/1/1/F1) Figure 1 - Type of manuscripts received for the year 2023. ### Gratitude We would like to express our sincere appreciation to the reviewers, advisory boards, and editorial boards for their insightful feedback, useful suggestions, and volunteer efforts to maintain the journal’s high standards. We would also like to express our gratitude to current and former staff members for their dedication and to our editors for their enthusiasm in promoting the journal locally and internationally. We also wish to thank the following reviewers who participated in the review of manuscripts and books in 2023 and have contributed to the journal’s success. *Our thanks also go to the following reviewers, who have participated in the excellent review of manuscripts and books for the year 2023.* A Spina Abdorreza Naser Moghadasi Abdulwahed Barnawi Abhigyan Nath Ahmad Abulaban Ajoy Prasad Shetty Alexandros G. Brotis Ali Reza Tavasoli Ali Seifi Amal Abujaber Amal Bakhsh Amit Kumar Chowhan Antonia Ceccarelli Ashfaq Shuaib Barbara Garavaglia Benedicto Colli Bitao Bu Brahim Tabarki Bulang Gao Cem Onal Chandrasekaran Kaliaperumal Dalya Abualsaud Eiichiro Nagata Emma M. Tillman Eric A. Sribnick Fahad Bashiri Faisal Alotaibi* Faisal Al-Suwaidan* Feride Ayyildiz Fernando L. Vale Filippo Maselli Francois Dubeau Friedemann Paul Gertrudis Perea Gulali Aktas Hanan S. M. Farghaly Helio Teive Henry L. Paulson Hiroaki Matsumoto Hongliang Zhang Idris Long Ismail Khatri* Jameela Saeedi Jean-Claude Mwanza Jian Wang Jithangi Wanigasinghe Jose Pedro Vieira Joyce A. Cramer Katsuhiko Ogawa Kenar D. Jhaveri Kosuke Matsuzono Lanfranco Pellesi Laniyati Hamijoyo Laxmaiah Manchikanti Li He Mansoureh Togha Mari Wataya-Kaneda Mario Peres Mary Elizabeth S. Nelson Maryam Khazaee-Pool Maurizio Elia Mihaela Adela Vintan Mohammad Wasay Mohammed Bangash Murat Baykara Nan Jiang Othman Alhammad Pasqualino Sirignano Peter Staats Piotr Sobolewski Rafael J. Tamargo Raidah Al-Baradie* Rajeev Taliyan Ramin Saravani Ravindra Kumar Garg Rodolfo G. Gatto Sachchida Nand Rai Saeed Alshahri Saeed Bafaraj Sandeep Sood Seher Naz Yeni Serkan Kirik Stefan Acosta Subhas Konar Vibhu Krishnan Viswanathan Vinil N. Shah Widjane Sheila Ferreira Goncalves Xioa-Qiao Dong Yassir Alasadiy Yingqi Xing Yvonne Wren Zeynab Yassin ****Reviewers who reviewed 3 or more articles for the year 2023*** * 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. ## References 1. 1.British Science Association History. [Updated December 2014; Accessed December 2023] From: [https://www.britishscienceassociation.org/history](https://www.britishscienceassociation.org/history) 2. 2.Bultitude K. The Why and How of Science Communication. [Updated August 2012; Accessed October 2016]. From: [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/staff/bultitude/KB\_TB/Karen\_Bultitude\_-\_Science\_Communication\_Why\_and\_How.pdf](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/staff/bultitude/KB\_TB/Karen\_Bultitude\_-\_Science\_Communication_Why_and_How.pdf) 3. 3.Baker SP. Review of Aileen Fyfe’s Science and Salvation: Evangelical Popular Science Publishing in Victorian Britain. Journal of Media and Religion 2005; 4:271–274. [Updated January 2021; Accessed December 2023] 4. 4.Fähnrich B, Weitkamp E, Kupper JF. Exploring ‘quality’ in science communication online: Expert thoughts on how to assess and promote science communication quality in digital media contexts. Public Underst Sci 2023; 32: 605–621. 5. 5.Szüdi G, Bartar P, Weiss G, Pellegrini G, Tulin M, Oomen T. New trends in science communication fostering evidence-informed policymaking. Open Res Eur 2023: 2: 78. 6. 6.Hundallah K, Khoja W. Editorial Message. Neurosciences (Riyadh) 2023; 28: 1–3. 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