Editorial Message

Neurosciences journal continues to achieve its vision, and mission statements through serving as a leading peer reviewed journal in basic and clinical neurosciences in the region. Disseminating accessible up to date medical information for clinical neuroscientists and promoting neurosciences research with clear clinical implications enriching knowledge locally, regionally, and internationally are our inner concentration.

Third quarter of 2018, the new editorial management system of the journal, ScholarOne, rolled out in full swing. This is part of our commitment to improve our processes to better serve our authors, reviewers and board members. ScholarOne is a familiar interface used by many journals. In a nutshell, authors and volunteer reviewers find it user-friendly and intuitive to use. Its key features, integrated database and automatic reminders are such efficiencies that have become even more important to us given the volume of manuscripts we process at different points of peer review and reassessment.

However, we are facing many challenges to receive the reviewers’ acceptance and complete the review within 5 days. Peer review process is a phase used to assess the quality of papers submitted to journals from expert peers in the field who have strong research background. The process serves also as a filter to publish the best articles received and fulfill our standards. Needless to say, as many journals, we have faced many challenges to complete the process efficiently within the allocated time due to the lack of interest, availability, and the busy schedule of reviewers. Neurosciences journal is thriving hardly to improve the process and attract reviewers and implement incentives.

As shown in our record, only (9%) agree to review the article with an average of 9 days (minimum 10 hours, maximum 35 days). In order to eliminate the bias issues from the reviewers comments; we are sending invitations to reviewers around the world. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, United Sates, Germany and Italy are the top 6 countries of our reviewers.

We also have noticed that the contribution of local publications in terms of quantity and quality have increased over the years. In 2007, the published article from Saudi Arabia was 24% of all publications at that year, but it rose to 45% in 2012 and now more than 50% (Figure 1). We even are expecting to receive more local submissions in the near future and we may need to increase number of articles per issues. This expectation is based on the fact of new regulations of health education authorities that encourage research among medical students, interns and residents in training programs. Add to that, the number of medical colleges have increased rapidly over the last decade.

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Figure 1

Shows the percentage of the published articles from Saudi Arabia from 2006-2019.

In 2019, our average rejection rate is 25% (Figure 2). Reasons for rejection included papers outside the scope of the journal, low scientific quality, not meeting the requirements of the journal, authors failing to submit the revisions and other necessary requirements, and duplicate publication. We published 4 issues in 2019, with a total of 54 articles, which included: 30 originals, 1 editorial, 1 obituary, 2 reviews, 11 case reports, 2 clinical notes, 1 brief communications, 3 correspondences and 3 clinical images. The average processing time from received to acceptance was 2.75 (1-6) months, 2.25 months from acceptance to publication (1-5) months and 5 months from received to publications (Figure 3). Sixty-Three percent of published articles were from Saudi Arabia, 22% from Turkey, 4% from Iraq, 4% from and New Zealand and the remaining from UK, Malaysia, and Philippines.

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Figure 2

Neurosciences journal received papers for the year 2019.

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Figure 3

Shows comparison of processing time frame from acceptance to publication during the year 2007-2019.

In November 30, 2019, we shared in organizing the Annual Medical Publication Workshop. The course was well attended and received by the attendees. This year’s theme covered topics on writing a research proposal, evidence-based medicine and critical appraisal, how to search and format your references, scientific editing for medical writing, how to write a research abstract, writing a strong Introduction, guidelines used in writing a manuscript, publication ethics, peer review process, common reasons for rejection and, tips for publishing your manuscript.

We are pleased with the journal growth and ability in attracting good manuscripts. With that said, and with our latest Journal Impact Factor of 0.892; we are definitely motivated to keep an eye on improving discoverability and visibility of our content and ensuring that the metadata is up-to-date, properly tagged and with enriched contents. We are more encouraged to accept publications from growing interest discipline or trending or medical breakthroughs. We hope all our readers continue to benefit from the published material, and we extend our sincerest thanks to our authors, readers and reviewers, wishing them all a successful fruitful year.

Finally, 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 2020. We would like thank them for comments, suggestions and contribution for our online survey.

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 2019.

De Masi, Roberto

Al-Baradie, Raidah

alasadiy, yassir

Alghnam, Suliman

Almalki, Daifallah

Almutairi, Aqeel Munahi

ALSALMAN, SADIQ

Al-Suwaidan, Faisal

Altinkaynak, Umut

Asa’ad, Farah

Aydin, Mustafa

AYDIN, TUGBA

Ballestero, Matheus FM

Bashiri, Fahad

Benlidayi, Ilke Coskun

Berciano, Jose

Bhat, Abdul Rashid

Bohlega, Saeed

BOUGEA, ANASTASIA

Boyko , AN

Brasil, Sergio

Camacho, Alessandra CLF

Cecilie, Lander

Chaoruangrit, A.

Chu , MK

Corredor, Fernando Ortiz

Demidas, Aneta

Dorgalaleh, Akbar -

El Sayed , SM

Fathi, Shereen

Faxén-Irving , Gerd

Gandhoke , GS

Gao, Bulang

Gbadebo, Olaide Shakeerah

Gbolahan, Balogun Wasiu

Girabent-Farres, Montserrat

Grimley, Rohan

Hamta, Amir

Isuru, Amila

Jirakittayakorn, Nantawachara

Joubert, B.

Kabak, Vesile Yildiz

Kala, Deepa

Kaliaperumal , Chandrasekaran

Kamisli, Ozden

Kashoo, Faizan Zaffar

Katsanos, Aristeidis H

Keklicek, Hilal

Kendirli, Tansel

Khashram, M.

Klein, Ainat

Kohlschuetter, Alfried

Koroglu, Fatma

Kraemer, Julia

Langhammer, Birgitta

Leticia Brambila-Tapia, Aniel Jessica

Lewis , A

Li, Lai-fung

Mahesh , PKB

Mainieri, Greta

Malaguarnera, Michele

Malik, Rayaz

Mameniskiene, R.

Mannikko, Roope

Matà as Guiu, Jordi

Mehta, Ankit

Mohammed Aljumah, Mohammed

Motiei-Langroudi, Rouzbeh

Muayqil, Taim

Muchiri, Jane

Nemes, Roxana-Maria

Neuhaus, Oliver

Oduntan, Olusola

Ogawa, Katsuhiko

Okasha, Tarek

Oliveira, Ricardo Santos de

Onoufriadis, Alexandros

Owolabi, L. F.

Ozcan, Cemal

Palve, Suchitra Sachin

Pandhi, Abhi

Papanagiotou, Panagiotis

Pauzi, Suria Hayati Md

Prudhvi, Vallampati

Rai, Ansaar T.

Refat, hossam

Saleh, Nermine

Samanta, Debopam

Segraves, Robert

SHAHRIZAILA, NORTINA

Shuaib, Ashfaq

Singh, Deepak

Solari, Domenico

Somma, Teresa

Spina , A

Sukul, Vishad

Szmuda, Tomasz

Tabarki, Brahim

Tallaksen, Chantal

Taylor, Michael D.

Thapa, Lekhjung

Turner, Dana P.

Uchino, Ken

Ullah, A. K. M. Atique

Uribe, Ezequiel

Valko , Y

Valls-Sole, Josep

Walter , U

Wang, Yuan Pang

Wanigasinghe, Jithangi

Xu, Shifen

Yeo, Leonard L. L.

Yigit, Serbulent

Zhang, Hongliang

Zhao, Jizong

Zyoud, Shaher H.