About Molecular Neurodegeneration

What is Molecular Neurodegeneration?

Molecular Neurodegeneration is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal that will encompass all aspects of neurodegeneration research at the molecular and cellular levels.

Neurodegenerative diseases collectively refer to neurological disorders that result from neurodegeneration and include, but are not limited to, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson disease, Huntington disease, and prion diseases. These diseases, which are often associated with advanced aging and display varying degrees of dementia, have become a significant public health issue as humans live longer and the aging population grows larger. Recent advances in the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of these neurodegenerative disorders have allowed for a better understanding of the disease mechanisms.

Content overview

Molecular Neurodegeneration considers the following types of articles:

• Commentaries: short, focused and opinionated articles on any subject within the journal's scope. These articles are usually related to a contemporary issue, such as recent research findings, and are often written by opinion leaders invited by the Editorial Board. They focus on specific issues and are about 800 words. Commentaries can be broken down into several types including ethics, technology, research-related, review-related, general interest, debates and reviews of recently published papers from other journals in the field.
• Meeting report: a short description of a conference that the author has attended. It is usually best for the article to be published as soon after the meeting as possible, and should focus on the key developments presented and discussed at the meeting. These articles are usually commissioned but reports and suggestions may also be submitted for the editors' consideration.
• Methodology articles: present a new experimental method, test or procedure. The method described may either be completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method. The article must describe a demonstrable advance on what is currently available. The method needs to have been well tested and ideally, but not necessarily, used in a way that proves its value.
• Research: reports of data from original research.
• Reviews: comprehensive, authoritative, descriptions of any subject within the journal's scope. Opinion leaders that have been invited by the Editorial Board usually write these articles. They have an educational aim and are 2000-3000 words. Long reviews and short reviews have different readerships and characteristics - a mixture of both is ideal. Reviews can cover any topical themes such as basic science and clinical reviews, ethics, pro/con debates, equipment reviews and thematic series to highlight specific topics in your field.
• Short reports: brief reports of data from original research, usually about 1500 words.

Peer review policies

Manuscripts that are deemed suitable for peer review will be assigned to two expert reviewers. Reviewers may either be Editorial Board members or external experts selected by the Editors. The reviewers will have up to three weeks to review the submitted article. The final decision to accept or reject a manuscript will be made by one of the Editors-in-Chief.

Edited by Guojun Bu and Huaxi Xu, Molecular Neurodegeneration is supported by an international Editorial Board.

Publishing in Molecular Neurodegeneration

All articles will be listed in PubMed immediately upon acceptance (after peer review), and will be covered by PubMed Central and Scopus.

Articles in Molecular Neurodegeneration should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. However, because articles in this journal are not printed, they do not have page numbers. Instead, they have a unique article number.

The following citation:

Mol Neurodegeneration 2004, 2:1

refers to article 1 from volume 2 of the journal.

As an online journal, Molecular Neurodegeneration does not have issue numbers. Each volume corresponds to a calendar year.

To keep up to date with the latest articles from Molecular Neurodegeneration, why not register to receive alerts? Registration also enables you to customise your subject areas of interest, store your searches, and submit your manuscripts.

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to Molecular Neurodegeneration using the online submission system. Full details of how to submit a manuscript are given in the instructions for authors.

General journal policies

Molecular Neurodegeneration is published  by BioMed Central, an independent publisher committed to ensuring peer-reviewed biomedical research is Open Access. That means it is freely and universally accessible online, it is archived in at least one internationally recognised free access repository, and its authors retain copyright, allowing anyone to reproduce or disseminate articles, according to the BioMed Central copyright and licence agreement. Molecular Neurodegeneration however, has taken this further by making all its content Open Access.

Molecular Neurodegeneration's articles are archived in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and also in repositories at the University of Potsdam in Germany, at INIST in France and in e-Depot, the National Library of the Netherlands' digital archive of all electronic publications. The journal is also participating in the British Library's e-journals pilot project, and plans to deposit copies of all articles with the British Library.

BioMed Central is working closely with the Thomson Reuters (ISI) to ensure that citation analysis of articles published in Molecular Neurodegeneration will be available.

Molecular Neurodegeneration is able to deliver summaries of frequently updated content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. These are accessible via the orange "XML" button at the top of the list of recent articles or the list of most accessed articles. For more information about RSS feeds see our publisher's website.

For further information about general policies please see the instructions for authors.