Instructions for Authors

“Aktualności Neurologiczne” (“Current Neurology”) is a peer-reviewed international medical journal that publishes original papers, including meta-analyses, reviews and case reports, thus contributing to the development of neurology.

“Aktualności Neurologiczne” (“Current Neurology”) also publishes updated information about the work of medical societies, including guidelines and consensus statements, as well as editorial commentaries concerning given articles, short communications, reports and materials from international congresses, letters to the editors, information about new medicinal products, abstracts and discussions on articles published in other scientific journals, book reviews and other publications.

The journal is a quarterly released in Polish and English versions.

Preparation of original papers, reviews and case reports

The manuscripts submitted for publication in the “Aktualności Neurologiczne” (“Current Neurology”) should be prepared in the MS Word program using font 12 (e.g. Arial, Times New Roman) and double-spaced. The approximate recommended volume of a paper (without the title page, abstract, tables, figures and references etc.):

• 2,000 words for an original paper;
• 3,000 words for a review;
• 1,500 words for a case report;
• 1,500 words for a short communication – describing the preliminary results of empirical studies of special importance, the course and the preliminary results of original empirical studies;
• 1,000 words for a letter to the editors and editorial comments.

Measures and denominations should conform to the international system of units (SI).

All abbreviations and acronyms should be explained at their first use in the text. No acronyms are allowed in abstracts.

Figures and tables should not be included in the text, but their ultimate location should be indicated, e.g. (Fig. 1), (Tab. 1). A figure legend should be presented on a separate page (beneath the references) and the tables should be placed at the end of the paper, after the figure legend, each table on a separate page. The number (using Arabic numerals) and title of the table should be placed above that table. All acronyms used should be explained under the table as footnotes. Only high-quality figures are accepted for printing, i.e. in the *.eps, *.ai, *tif, *.bmp or *.jpg formats with the resolution of 300 dpi and 8 or 16 cm wide (respectively for single or double columns). Color photos should be prepared in CMYK mode and graphs – in Word, Power Point or Excel programs. No inscriptions on the photos should be made; only symbolic markings are acceptable, such as arrows, crosses or arrowheads, which must be sufficiently large and legible. Their explanations should be included in the figure description.

In the case of submitting the figures already published in another journal, a written consent of the copyright owner is required for their repeated use.

First author on behalf of all co-authors declares that the manuscript has not been concurrently submitted for publication in a different periodical and that no significant part of it has ever been published in another journal.

Statement of Human and Animal Rights

All experimental studies involving human subjects or animals require an approval of the local ethics committee (with respect to medical studies involving humans, authors shall conform to the principles included in the Declaration of Helsinki and with respect to experiments on animals – to the guidelines included in the Interdisciplinary Principles and Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research, Testing and Education, issued by the New York Academy of Sciences – Ad Hoc Committee on Animal Research). A statement of the fact that the approval of the ethics committee has been obtained and its number should be included in the Material and methods section.

Statement of Informed Consent

In the case of studies involving human subjects, their written, informed consent to the participation in the trial is necessary. A statement that such a consent has been obtained should be included in the Material and methods section, according to the principles issued by the World Medical Association – the Declaration of Helsinki. It is prohibited to use patients’ names, initials, case history numbers or any other information that would enable the identification of the patient both in the actual text of the paper and in the illustrative material (figures, tables).

Conflict of Interest Statement

If there is a conflict of interest*, the source of financing the study (e.g. number and title of a grant) should be disclosed. At the end of the paper (i.e. directly before the References), the authors should include information concerning a possible conflict of interest and acknowledgements. If no conflict of interest exists, the authors should include the following statement: The authors do not report any financial or personal connections with other persons or organizations, which might negatively affect the content of this publication and/or claim authorship rights to this publication (an example).

Layout of manuscripts

Title page is the first page of a manuscript – it contains the title, full first and last names of all authors, their affiliations, i.e. full names of institutions, cities and countries. Consecutive Arabic numerals placed after last names as superscripts indicate the affiliated institution, e.g. Jan Kowalski¹, Joanna Nowak²:
¹ Department and Clinic of Neurology, University...
² Department of Imaging Diagnostics, Hospital...
The address for correspondence should be provided below affiliation data and should include complete details of a contact person, i.e. first and last names, postal address, electronic address and phone number.

Abstract – the second page of a manuscript. It should contain:

• for original papers and reviews between 200 and 250 words;
• for case reports and short communications between 100 and 150 words.

The structure of the abstract of an original paper and short communications is as follows: aim of the study, material and methods, results, conclusions. Other types of papers do not require structured abstracts. In the abstract to a case report, apart from the aim and brief description of the disease history, conclusions should be mentioned as well – i.e. information concerning clinical relevance of the presented case. Acronyms and abbreviations are not allowed in abstracts.
Below the abstract, 3–5 key words should be provided based on the Index Medicus – Medical Subject Headings.

Introduction – description of the current knowledge concerning a particular subject which is concluded with the aim of the paper.

Material and methods – description of a group of patients included in the study, equipment used and statistical methods implemented. In this section, a note should be added stating that the patients’ written consent to participation in the study has been obtained and – in the case of experimental studies – the approval has been granted by the local ethics committee.

Results – should be presented in a clear and concise way, preferably in the form of tables or diagrams.

Discussion – interpretation of own results and their confrontation with literature reports.

Conclusions – presented clearly, in the form of one or a few sentences.

Conflict of interest – a statement concerning the source of financing or information about the lack of such a conflict.

Acknowledgements – thanks to persons who contributed to the creation of the paper.

References – the list of publications quoted in the paper, presented in the alphabetical order. The Harvard Referencing System should be observed, i.e. the last name of the author and the year of publication should be included directly in the text in the round brackets (Nowak et al., 2012). If more than one paper of the same author and the same year is referred to, a letter should be added, e.g. Nowak et al., 2012a. If a paper was written by two authors, both names should be referred to, e.g. Nowak and Kowalski, 2011. In original and review papers, at most 30 other publications may be referred to; in case reports – up to 15 papers. It is recommended to avoid indirect quotations and refer to original papers rather than their translations or later versions. Abbreviations of the names of other journals must conform to the Index Medicus. If the quoted paper has no more than three co-authors, they should all be listed. If there are more co-authors, the first three should be listed, followed by et al. Please observe punctuation marks, i.e. full stops, colons, spaces, etc.
Example references:

• articles:
  1. Coric V, van Dyck CH, Salloway S et al.: Safety and tolerability of the γ-secretase inhibitor avagacestat in a phase 2 study of mild to moderate Alzheimer disease. Arch Neurol 2012; 69: 1430–1440.
  2. Kovacs FM, Urrútia G, Alarcón JD: Surgery versus conservative treatment for symptomatic lumbar spinal stenosis: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Spine (Phila Pa 1976) 2011; 36: E1335–E1351.
   
• papers published with a DOI number only:
  Monti MM, Rosenberg M, Finoia P et al.: Thalamo-frontal connectivity mediates top-down cognitive functions in disorders of consciousness. Neurology 2014. DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000001123.
   
• books:
  Gelb DJ: Introduction to Clinical Neurology. 4^th ed., Oxford University Press, New York 2011.
   
• chapters in books:
  Beck E, Daniel PM: Prion diseases from a neuropathologist’s perspective. In: Prusiner SB, Collinge J, Powell J et al. (eds.): Prion Diseases of Humans and Animals. Ellis Horwood, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Singapore 1993.
  

List of Figures should be placed on a separate page beneath the references using Arabic numerals.

Tables – each on a separate page. The heading should contain the number and title of the table. The abbreviations and acronyms used should be explained below the table as footnotes.

Delivering the manuscripts

Original papers, reviews, case reports and other types of papers in “Aktualności Neurologiczne” (“Current Neurology”) are published in English or/and in Polish. At the request of the principal author and at their expense, the editors can send the article for translation into English (or order correction of the English version prepared by the author) to qualified translators.

The manuscripts with all their attachments should be sent via Editorial System: https://www.editorialsystem.com/akneen/.

Peer-review procedure

The review procedure conforms to the recommendations of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education published in the document Good practice in peer-review procedures in science. The manuscripts submitted for publication in the “Aktualności Neurologiczne” (“Current Neurology”) are evaluated in terms of their content and formal requirements. It is assumed that all co-authors agree for the publication of the submitted paper and that the signature of the author responsible for correspondence confirms the consent of all others.

The manuscripts submitted for publication are first assessed with respect to their formal requirements by the Managing Editor. Incomplete papers or those that do not fulfill the above-listed requirements are sent back to their authors for correction. The papers that fulfill all formal requirements undergo further evaluation. Each manuscript is registered under a specific number and sent for review to two independent reviewers – recognized experts in the field the paper relates to who are not affiliated with the authors’ institutions and have no conflict of interest with the authors (kinship, professional dependency or direct scientific cooperation over the period of two years preceding the peer-review).

The Editorial Board of “Aktualności Neurologiczne” (“Current Neurology”) uses the “double-blind review” model, i.e. the identity of the reviewers is not revealed to the authors and vice versa – the reviewers do not know the identity of the authors and the remaining reviewers. Nevertheless, for the sake of transparency and clearness of the procedure, in the first issue of the quarterly in a given year and on its web site, the Editorial Board publishes a list of all reviewers that evaluated the manuscripts in the previous year. The peer-review procedure lasts 2 weeks. The reviewers are obliged to provide a content-related justification for their evaluation of the submitted paper and express unambiguous opinion by selecting one of the following options:

• the paper is ready for publication without any corrections;
• the paper can be published after minor corrections have been introduced in accordance with the reviewer’s recommendations, without the need for a repeated review;
• the paper can be published after its correction in accordance with the reviewer’s comments and after a repeated review;
• the paper should not be published.

Upon obtaining a positive opinion of both reviewers, the manuscript is accepted for printing. In the case of divergent opinions, the Editor-in-Chief requests the opinion of the third reviewer. The entire editorial process does not exceed 3 months.

Scientific reliability

The Editorial Board of the “Aktualności Neurologiczne” (“Current Neurology”) draws attention to the fact that the transparency and availability of information on the persons that have contributed to the creation of a paper (content-related, material, financial contribution etc.) constitutes the evidence of the researcher’s ethical attitude and of the highest editorial standards. Not only does it reflect good practice, but also is a manifestation of social responsibility.

We remind that the authors of publications are obliged to present the results of their studies in a transparent, reliable and honest way. Particular forms of scientific dishonesty are ghostwriting and guest authorship:

• the phenomenon of ghostwriting occurs, when the authors of a paper do not reveal the name of the person who significantly contributed to the creation of that paper – the name is not mentioned either as a co-author or in the Acknowledgements section;
• the unethical instance of guest authorship is a situation, when the contribution of one of the authors is negligible or none, but they are still listed as the co-authors of the publication.

The Editorial Board declares that the authors of the published papers assume full responsibility for their publications and all detected cases of dishonesty will be disclosed.

The authors are asked to reveal their actual contribution to the submitted article, whereby the author who submits the manuscript assumes the major responsibility.

Copyright

“Aktualności Neurologiczne” (“Current Neurology”) is an open journal, available online on, among others, www.neurologia.com.pl. It can be accessed free of charge and with no other barriers on the basis of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) – CC-BY-NC-ND (certain rights reserved for the publisher and authors). The license allows for redistribution, presentation and preparation of the material for non-commercial purposes only, as long as it remains in its original form (without creating derivative works). The journal allows the author(s) to hold the copyright and retain publishing rights without restrictions. When deciding to publish an article in “Aktualności Neurologiczne” (“Current Neurology”), the author consents to its redistribution on the aforementioned terms and guarantees that the article does not infringe the rights of the third party.

* Conflict of interest exists when at least one of authors is connected, e.g. financially (by investments, employment, counseling, royalties etc.) with the institutions which might have an influence on his/her independence and objectivity. If a paper assesses particular products that are partially or entirely sponsored by commercial companies, the authors are obliged to disclose this fact.