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Molecular Psychiatry
Instructions for authors
Scope
We define molecular psychiatry broadly, as an interdisciplinary field focused on the elucidation of the fundamental biological mechanisms underlying psychiatric disorders and their treatment.
The scope of the journal parallels the breadth of this field, with the goal of providing a forum for integrating molecular medicine to clinical psychiatry. Molecular Psychiatry will publish hypotheses driven, high-quality work in molecular, cellular or integrative neuroscience as well as clinical research in psychiatry, including genetics, pathophysiology, imaging, and psychopharmacology. In addition to original research, the journal will feature a section of “News & views”, and also publish perspective papers, reviews, a Grand Rounds seminar series and “Immediate communications”. Given the potential for a high number of negative genetic studies a strong rationale is required for submissions of negative genetic data.
News & views
Short overviews of new original work are published in this section. Text should be preceded by a brief sentence of 20-30 words that summarizes the article.
Perspectives
These are summaries of not more than 5 single-sided printed pages of development in fast-moving areas of interest to the readers of Molecular Psychiatry. Perspective articles will be solicited.
Reviews
Scholarly reviews of topics within the scope of Molecular Psychiatry will be considered for publication after peer-review. We will also consider special review formats such as ‘sounding board’, ‘commentary’, ‘hypothesis’ or ‘point of view’. Please send a one-page letter of inquiry to the editor before preparing your manuscript, to make sure that a similar review is not in press.
Immediate communications
These are definitive studies of high merit which warrant rapid dissemination. This format is not for preliminary data, and should be used solely for complete studies of exceptional significance and novelty. Authors can submit Immediate communications in either style A or style B. Review will be done whenever possible by members of the editorial board. Reviews of submissions will be extremely rigorous; the criteria of high merit, exceptional significance and novelty will be stringently followed. The editor will make final decisions regarding acceptance within one week of receipt of manuscript. Review and publication of Immediate communications will be maximally expedited with a goal of publication within 3-10 weeks of submission.
Submission of manuscripts
Five complete copies of each manuscript, including figures and tables, should be submitted directly to the editorial office (see below.) The original manuscript and one set of high quality figures should be marked as such. All computer generated artwork should be submitted on disk as an EPS or TIFF file format saved in MacPhotoshop if possible. Four prints of each figures must accompany the disk. Revised manuscripts should be marked as such and should include the manuscript number. Please enclose a cover lettering including the corresponding author’s complete address, e-mail address, telephone and fax numbers. To expedite the review process, authors may recommend three to five reviewers. Please provide the name, address, telephone and fax numbers and area of expertise for each. Note that recommended reviewers will be used at the discretion of the editor. Acknowledgement of receipt of the manuscript by the editorial office will be sent to the corresponding author, including an assigned manuscript number which should be included in all subsequent correspondence.
Editorial office
Julio Licinio, MD
UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
3357A Gonda (Goldschmied) Center
695 Charles E Young Drive South, Box 951761
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1761
USA
Fax: +1 310 825 6407
E-mail: licinio@ucla.edu
Ava Martin, Editorial Assistant
Tel: +1 310 206 6739
Fax: +1 310 825 6407
E-mail: molecularpsychiatry@mednet.ucla.edu
Editorial policy
Molecular Psychiatry is an independent journal published by Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd. All contributions and general correspondence regarding editorial matters should be addressed to the editor and sent to the editorial office. Manuscripts submitted to the journal must represent reports of original research. Manuscripts will be sent for anonymous review by at least two referees, who will either be members of the editorial board or others of similar standing in the field. Authors will be notified of acceptance, rejection or need for revision within 3 weeks. When a manuscript is returned to the corresponding author for revision, it should be returned to the editor within 2 months, otherwise it may be considered withdrawn. Accepted manuscripts will appear in the journal within 3 months, whenever possible. It is understood that by publishing a paper in Molecular Psychiatry, authors agree to make freely available to colleagues in academic research any plasmids, viruses, antibodies, nucleic acids and living materials such as microbial strains and cell lines that were used in the research reported and that are not available from commercial suppliers.
Copyright
Authors will be asked before publication to assign the world copyright of their manuscript to Macmillan Publishers Ltd. Therefore, all manuscripts submitted must be accompanied by a signed statement that the article is original, is not under consideration, or has not been previously published elsewhere and its content has not been anticipated by any previous publication.
Preparation of manuscripts
All manuscripts should by in English legibly typed on one side only of American 8 and a half x 11 inches or A4 paper. All sections of the manuscript should be double-spaced with one inch margins on all four sides. Please subdivide manuscripts into the following sequence of sections: Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgement, References, Tables, Figure legends. Number each page (title page is 1). Please indicate the position of each figure and table in the margin. Because competition for space is severe, brevity is highly encouraged. Papers not following the indicated format may be returned.
Title page/Keywords
The title should be as brief as possible with no abbreviations. Include each author’s surname and initials and complete addresses in English including department, institution, city with postal code and country (indicating clearly which author is at which address.) A corresponding author should be indicated with telephone, fax numbers and e-mail address provided. Please also provide a running title of not more than 50 characters. Please provide 5 to 10 keywords using standard MeSH-Medline subject headings for indexing purposes. Terms not contained within the title are preferred.
Molecular Psychiatry publishes only complete studies; brief reports, pilot studies, or preliminary data will not be considered. We have two styles for original research articles that fully report complete studies. The use of style B is highly encouraged.
Style A is our traditional format that consists of an abstract of 150-250 words, followed by a brief introduction that assumes that the reader is knowledgeable in the field (no more than 1500 words), materials and methods, results, discussion, acknowledgements and references. There is no size limit for style A but papers of more than 30 typewritten pages have to contain a cover letter justifying the need for a long article.
Style B is better for short items that present new and exciting date. In style B, the main text will include a terse, fully-referenced, introductory paragraph of 100-200 words, that provides background to the work, outlines the main results and presents the implications of the work. The remainder of the text will be a single section without headings that presents the results and conclusions of the work in no more than 1500 words. The methods used will be presented concisely in a separate section at the end of the text. Authors can include up to 30 references in style B. Style B can accommodate three to four display items (figures or tables) and should occupy no more than six journal pages.
References
For both styles A and B, references should follow the Vancouver format. In the text, they should appear as numbers starting at 1. At the end of the papers they should be listed (double-spaced) in numerical order corresponding to the order of citation in the text. All authors should be quoted up to a maximum of six followed by et al. Abbreviations for titles of medical periodicals should conform to those used in the latest edition of Index Medicus. The first and last page numbers for each reference should be provided. Abstracts and letters must be identified as such.
- Barbosa MDFS, Ngyen QA, Tchernev VT, Ashley JA, Detter JC, Blaydes SM, Brandt SJ, Chotai D, Hodgman G, Solari RCE, Lovett M, Kingsmore SF. Identification of the homologous beige and Chediak-Higashi syndrome genes. Nature1996; 382: 262-265.
- Greenberger JS. Long-term hematopoietic cultures. In: Golde W. (ed) Hematopoiesis. Churchill Livingstone: New York, 1984, pp 203-242.
Tables
These should be typed on separate sheets and numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. Tables should be self-explanatory and include a brief descriptive title. Footnotes to tables indicated by lower case letters are acceptable, but they should not include extensive experimental detail.
Illustrations and photographs
All figures should be referred to in the text as Figure 1, and should be no larger than 8 and a half x 11 inches. Please do not send valuable or original artwork as we cannot be responsible for lost or damaged figures. Write the title of your paper, the name of the first author, and the figure number lightly in pencil on the back of each figure. Photographs should be of sufficient high quality with respect to detail, contrast and fineness of grain to withstand some reduction and the inevitable loss of contrast and detail inherent in the printing process. Please indicate the magnification by a rule on the photograph. Inclusion of color plates will be subject to a special charge. The author will have the opportunity to approve both costs and proofs of color illustrations prior to printing. In the manuscript, indicate with an arrow in the margin the most appropriate position for the figure. Authors are encouraged to send color figures as suggestions for the cover of Molecular Psychiatry and for our Image section.
Nucleotide sequences
It is expected that GenBank/EMBL accession numbers for primary nucleotide and/or amino acid sequence data will be included in the original manuscript or be inserted when the manuscript is modified. The accession number should be included as a separate paragraph at the end of the Materials and methods section.
Abbreviations
These should be defined in parentheses after their first mention in the text, except for the use of accepted abbreviations, such as SI symbols, which need not be defined. Use generic names when referring to drugs; trade names may be given in parentheses at first mention.
Proofs
Manuscripts will be scheduled for publication upon receipt of proofs. Extensive changes to the proofs will result in publication delay. Important new information that has become available between acceptance of the manuscript and receipt of the proofs may be inserted as an Addendum in proof with the permission of the editor. Proofs must be checked immediately for typographical errors and returned to the publisher along with the copyright assignment form.
Offprints
The publishers supply 25 offprints upon payment of page charges. Offprint order forms are sent out with the proofs, and must be returned to the publisher. Later orders submitted after the journal is printed are subject to increased reprint prices.
Last Updated 21 March 2001
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