Instructions to Authors

The Turkish Journal of Neurology (TJN) is the publication of the Turkish Neurological Society, which is published quarterly (March, June, September, December).

As of 2022, the TJN will not accept case reports. Reports on cases that are rare, differ in diagnosis and treatment, add new ones to our existing knowledge and contribute to them, will be included in the evaluation process only if they are prepared in the format of “Clinical View” or “Letter to the Editor”.

The publication language of the journal is English.

The TJN is indexed in Web of Science; Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Embase, Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), EBSCO Host Research Databases, CINAHL Complete, Scopus, ProQuest, Gale/Cengage Learning, British Library, Tübitak/Ulakbim TR Dizin, J-Gate, IdealOnline, Türkiye Citation Index, Türk Medline, Hinari, GOALI, ARDI, OARE, AGORA.

Ethical Issues and Peer Review
The TJN is an independent and non-biased publication that adheres to the double-blind peer review process.

The Publication Policy and Manuscript Writing Rules were prepared in accordance with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (ICMJE Recommendations) (2016, http://www.icmje.org).

No fees are requested from the authors during submission, evaluation, or publication process. All manuscripts must be submitted via the online submission system, which is available at https://submit.tjn.org.tr. The journal guidelines, technical information, and the required forms are available on the journal’s web page.

Submitted manuscripts are first evaluated for their scientific value by the Editor-in-Chief. After initial evaluation, regarding to article’s topic, one of the Associate Editors is assigned. Then, manuscripts are sent to at least two peer reviewers for evaluation. The Editorial Board may also send the manuscript to another reviewer, if necessary. All reviewers are independent national and international experts in the field. After peer-review process, the Associate Editor adds his/her own comments to the peer reviews and sends them to the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief considers peer-reviewers’ and Associate Editor’s comments and commits his/her final decision. The entire evaluation process is aimed to be finished within three months. Each submission is also evaluated by the Statistics Editor.

The received and acceptance dates will appear on the published article in the journal.

The Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors have the right to reject, return manuscripts for revision, or revise the format of manuscripts that do not comply with publication rules.

The TJN declares to principally comply with the ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/). Therefore, all studies that involve human subjects, patients or volunteers must be informed and their consents must be taken (Informed Consent of Publication in Turkish Journal of Neurology is available here). This information must be provided in the “Materials and Methods” section of the manuscript. For manuscripts that include any case details, personal information, and/or images of patients, authors must obtain signed informed consent for publication from patients and/or their legal guardians. Patient details must be anonymized as far as possible. For studies involving animals, the authors must particularly ensure that their study complies with the principles of the Guide for Care and Use of Animals (www.nap.edu/catalog/5140.html). Approval must be obtained from the institutional Ethics Committee (including approval number and date). The relevant documents must be provided upon the request of the Editor-in-Chief, if necessary.

Authors should provide declarations of financial or material support if received for the study and manuscript preparation. Authors are required to provide a statement confirming the absence of any conflict of interest.

All manuscripts submitted to the journal for publication are checked by Crossref Similarity Check powered by “iThenticate” software for plagiarism. If plagiarism is detected, relevant institutions may be notified. In this case, the authors may be asked to disclose their raw data to relevant institutions.

The scientific and legal responsibility for manuscripts sent to our journal for publication belongs to the authors. Authors are fully responsible for the accuracy of opinions, recommendations, and references in their manuscripts. The copyright of manuscripts accepted for publication belongs to the Turkish Neurological Society (No payment is made to the authors for copyright).

All manuscripts submitted for publication should be prepared in accordance with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals Editors (http://www.ulakbim.gov.tr/cabim/vt/uvt/tip/) issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Authors are required to accept that Editors and Associate Editors have the right to make revisions in the manuscript without making major changes.

If the manuscript includes a commercial link or if an institution provides material support to the study, authors should inform the Editor about the presence and type (consultant, other agreements) of the relationship with the product, drug, or company.

In case of any suspicion or claim regarding scientific shortcomings or ethical violation, the journal reserves the right to submit the manuscript to the supporting institutions or other authorities for investigation. The journal accepts the responsibility of initiating action, but does not undertake any responsibility for an actual investigation or any power of decision.

Preparation of original articles, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and case reports must comply with the following study design guidelines:

CONSORT statement for randomized-controlled trials (Moher D, Schultz KF, Altman D, for the CONSORT Group. The CONSORT statement revised recommendations for improving the quality of reports of parallel-group randomized trials. JAMA 2001; 285: 1987-91) (http://www.consort-statement.org/),

PRISMA statement of preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (Moher D, Liberati A, Tetzlaff J, Altman DG, The PRISMA Group. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: The PRISMA Statement. PLoS Med 2009; 6(7): e1000097.) (http://www.prisma-statement.org/),

STARD checklist for the reporting of studies of diagnostic accuracy (Bossuyt PM, Reitsma JB, Bruns DE, Gatsonis CA, Glasziou PP, Irwig LM, et al., for the STARD Group. Towards complete and accurate reporting of studies of diagnostic accuracy: the STARD initiative. Ann Intern Med 2003;138:40-4.) (http://www.stard-statement.org/),

STROBE statement, a checklist of items that should be included in reports of observational studies (http://www.strobe-statement.org/),

MOOSE guidelines for meta-analysis and systemic reviews of observational studies (Stroup DF, Berlin JA, Morton SC, et al. Meta-analysis of observational studies in epidemiology: a proposal for reporting Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) group. JAMA 2000; 283: 2008-12),

CARE guidelines are designed to increase the accuracy, transparency, and usefulness of case reports. (Gagnier JJ, Kienle G, Altman DG, Moher D, Sox H, Riley D; the CARE Group. The CARE Guidelines: Consensus-based Clinical Case Reporting Guideline Development.) (http://www.care-statement.org/)

General Rules
The TJN accepts only online submissions (www.tjn.org.tr). To submit an article, authors should subscribe to the TJN website(https://submit.tjn.org.tr) and obtain a personal password. This system enables online submission and evaluation of the manuscript. Collected articles are processed and archived by this system in compliance with principles of ICMJE, Index Medicus (Medline/PubMed), and Science Citation Index (SCI). The ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) number of the all authors should be provided while sending the manuscript. Free registration can be created at http://orcid.org.

Paper layout: The manuscript should be written in Times New Roman font, 12 point-type, double-spaced with 2-cm margins on both sides. The text should be prepared with a computer program compatible with Windows operating system. Page numbers should be used starting from the initial page, and page numbers should be at the bottom right corner of each page. The main manuscript file should not include author names or their institutions.

Abbreviations: Abbreviations used in the journal should be nationally or internationally accepted, and should be defined after the full term and introduced in parentheses the first time they are used. Afterwards, the abbreviation should be used throughout the text. Abbreviations should not be used in titles, headings or captions. A Turkish source ‘Bilimsel Bir Makale Nasıl Yazılır ve Yayımlanır? (How to write and publish a scientific article?)’ can be referred for international abbreviations (https://ulakbim.tubitak.gov.tr/sites/images/Ulakbim/eyes2_yazar_1.pdf).

Title page: Title page should include an English title, English running title shorter than 50 characters including spaces, the names and, last names of the authors. The clinic, department, institution, and organization in which the study was conducted should also be stated. Corresponding author’s name, address, email, mobile phone, and fax numbers should also be included on the title page. Also, e-mails of other authors should be added. Previous presentations of the study in symposia or congresses should also be stated.

Any financial or other support from any person or institution should be mentioned under the heading of Conflict of Interest. Also, in studies with multiple authors, the roles of each author should be defined.

The TJN expects that every author meets at least one of the following internationally accepted criteria:

1. Contributing to the preparation of the project, or obtained, analyzed or interpreted data of the study,
2. Providing a significant contribution to writing or intellectual development of the article.

Additionally, all of the authors should give consent to accuracy, originality, and wholeness of the study (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html).

Pictures, tables, graphs, and figures
Tables, figures, graphs, and pictures should be numbered according to the sequence of referral within the text. Each table, figure, graph, or picture should be cited in the text. Explanations should be made for abbreviations in footnotes. Tables should be prepared to explain the text and not be a repetition of text or figures.

Pictures: X-ray films, computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, other diagnostic images, and pictures of pathology specimens should be sent in 127-173 mm dimensions and high quality (300 dpi). There should not be any text on images and radiological images. Lesions must be indicated with black arrows on a white background or white arrows on a dark background. Letters, numbers, and symbols on pictures should be clear, consistent, and large enough to be legible, when the picture is resized for publication. Pictures should be as self-explanatory as possible. When pictures or images of patients are used, the patients’ names and eyes must be censored to prevent identification, and consent must be obtained from the patient or his/her legal guardians. Legends for illustrations should be written using double-spacing starting on a separate page, and Arabic numerals should be used for corresponding illustrations. When symbols, arrows, numbers or letters are used to identify parts of illustrations, each should be explained in the legend. Patients’ names should not be written in pictures and omitted from radiological images.

Pictures should be numbered according to the sequence of referral within the text, and a figure legends should be written for each figure. When a picture from another source is used, permission of the author and publisher must be obtained and sent to the journal. Details of photographs should be distinguishable; they should be recorded in JPEG format and at least 300 pixels/inch resolution.

Tables, graphs, and figures: Each table should be prepared with double-spacing on a separate page. Tables should have a brief title. Explanations should be made in footnotes instead of heading. Explanations should be made for all non-standard abbreviations in footnotes. If decimal numbers are used, it must be separated with dots in articles. Use only one decimal-digit after dot, except specific numbers (e.g., p-value). The following symbols should be used in footnotes in sequence: *, †, ‡, §, ||, ¶, **, ††, ‡‡. Each table should be cited in the text.

Figures and graphs should be drawn professionally or photographed, and should be of photographic quality when digitally recorded. Electronic files of figures or graphs should be sent in JPEG, or GIF format that will produce high-quality images and the quality of the files should be checked on a computer screen before submission. In radiological monitoring such as magnetic resonance imaging or computed tomography of the patient, the writing around the image should be redacted with appropriate software (such as Photoshop) and the images should be surrounded by black color. In radiological images, information such as the location of the shot, the name of the patient, the date of shot should be removed with the help of appropriate software without distorting the image quality or destroying the image. If the article contains tables, graphs, figures or pictures from a previously published article, written consent should be obtained from the authors and copyright owners, and this should be stated.

Clinical Trial Policy
All clinical trials, which are any research projects that prospectively assign individuals or a group of individuals to an intervention, with or without concurrent comparison or control groups, to study the relationship between a health-related intervention and a health outcome, must be registered in a public trials registry acceptable to the International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICMJE). Authors of randomized-controlled trials must adhere to the CONSORT guidelines , and provide both a CONSORT checklist (for protocols, see the SPIRIT guidance) and flow diagram. We require that you choose the MS Word template at www.consort-statement.org for the flow chart and cite/upload it in the manuscript as a figure. In addition, submitted manuscripts must include the unique registration number in the Abstract as evidence of registration. For more detailed instructions regarding clinical trials, please visit the guideline below:

Clinical Trials Guidelines

You can register for clinical trials by visiting the following link:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/

To register the relevant record in the system and learn more about the protocol to be followed, please review the link below:
https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/manage-recs/how-register

The other registries are accepted by ICJME:
www.anzctr.org.au
www.ISRCTN.org
www.umin.ac.jp/ctr/index/htm
www.onderzoekmetmensen.nl/en
https://eudract.ema.europa.eu/

Manuscript Types

Original Article
Original articles include clinical research, clinical observation, new methods, and experimental and laboratory studies. Original articles should include title, abstract, keywords related with the main topic of the study, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results (findings), Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgments, References, Tables, Figures, and Images. Original articles should not exceed 5000 words and 40 references.

Title page: The page that includes the title of the article, author names, and information about the authors.

Abstract: Abstract should be included in original articles, case reports, and reviews. Abbreviations should be avoided in abstracts if possible. In this section, there should be no references, figures, tables, or citations. Abstracts should mention the main topics of the article and not exceed 300 words. The English abstract should be structured to include "Objective,” “Materials and Methods/Patients and Methods,” “Results,” and “Conclusion” sections.

In original articles, the Abstract should include the following five subheadings:

1. Objective: The aim of the study should be identified.

2. Materials and Methods: The study design should be defined, and inclusion & exclusion criteria, and statistical methods should be stated.

3. Results: Detailed results of the study should be given, and the level of statistical significance should be stated.

4. Conclusion: The conclusion should provide a concise summary of the key findings, their significance and implications, and a sense of closure to the study, including strengths and limitations. It should also provide researchers with clear insights and valuable information for further studies.

5. Keywords: Provide at least 3-5 keywords. Only use terms that are included in the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) (https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/search).

Original articles should include the following sections:

1. Introduction: Concise information should be given about the topic, the aim of the study should be stated, and all information should be supported by the literature.

2. Materials and Methods: The study design (i.e., retrospective, prospective, or randomized) should be stated, and sample size should be defined. Inclusion & exclusion criteria should be explicitly provided. Methods and research protocols used and statistical analysis should be clearly specified.

3. Results: Results, tables, and figures should be given, and the results should be evaluated considering statistical methods used in the study. Writing rules about visual material can be found under “General Rules” in the section of “Figures, Tables, Graphs, and Images.”

4. Discussion: Results should be discussed with strengths and limitations, and compared to the literature.

5. Conclusion: Conclusions of the study should be emphasized in one or two paragraphs.

6. Acknowledgment: Any conflict of interest, financial support, donation, or other editorial and/or technical support (statistical analysis evaluation) should be stated at the end of the text. Each individual who contributed to the article by technical support, writing and proofreading of the article, data collection, and/or analysis but do not meet the criteria to be an author should be mentioned in the Acknowledgment section.

7. References: References should include recent publications as much as possible. Authors are fully responsible for the accuracy of references. Information about writing rules for references can be found in the “References” subsection of the “General Rules” section.

Review Articles
A review discusses a current topic in detail independently without overemphasizing a particular opinion. As reviews to be published in the journal are planned by the Editor-in-Chief, authors of any reviews other than those invited should obtain approval of the Editor-in-Chief before submission to the Journal. Reviews should include a title page, abstract, keywords (minimum 3, maximum 5 keywords).. A non-structured abstract that does not exceed 300 words should be prepared. Reviews should not exceed 8000 words. Also, the number of references should be less than 100.

Case Report
Case reports should include cases that are rarely seen, unique in diagnosis or treatment, and add new information to the scientific knowledge.

Case reports should include a title , abstract, keywords, Introduction, Case, Discussion, and References. The Introduction and Discussion sections should be concise in case reports, and a non-structured abstract that does not exceed 300 words should be prepared. Case reports should not exceed 2500 words with 15 references.

Short Communication
Reports representing a significant contribution in the related field may be concisely documented as a short communication. Short communications should include a title , non-structured abstract, and 2-5 keywords . The maximum length of a short communication is 1500 words, and tables and a no more than two figures/graphs should be included. References should be limited to 10.

Letter to the Editor
These letters address issues or exchange views on topics arising from published articles. They should be concise, not exceed 750 words, should not include an abstract, and references should be limited to 5. It is not acceptable to be included a subheading on a Letter to the Editor manuscript. Short case reports may also be published under this heading.

Images in Clinical Neurology
Under this heading, images of rare neurological conditions are published. The title should not exceed 10 words. The patient’s history, physical examination and laboratory findings, clinical course, treatment response if applicable, and the latest condition of the patient should be summarized. The main theme of the manuscript should be the picture. All labeled structures in the image should be defined and explained in the legends. Images in clinical neurology texts should not exceed 500 words and five references. Graphs with high resolution (300 dpi) should be used, and not more than four pictures, figures or graphs should be included. Images in Clinical Neurology should not include subsections.

Perspective
Under this heading unique, creative, and solution-oriented scientific ideas about problems faced by neurologists in Türkiye are published. Manuscripts submitted under this topic should be sent as a single text without exceeding 500 words or 5 references.

Meeting Highlights
Under this heading, national or international meetings, congresses or symposiums in the field of neurology, neurological sciences, or clinical neurology can be presented. Prominent scientific findings in these meetings should be summarized. Manuscripts submitted under this heading should be sent as a single text without exceeding 500 words. No references should be used.

Frontiers in Neurology
This section includes comments about articles that have been published in the previous year and thought to be essential for its field. Manuscripts should include maximum one figure or one table. These manuscripts are not absolute translations of the articles. Prominent findings of the article should be summarized, and they should be compared with the published literature. Manuscripts should not include subsections, and maximum 3 references should be included.

References
- Data and manuscripts that have not yet been published should not be cited as references. These should be stated in the main text as “author(s), unpublished data, year.”

- Reference numbers should be given in the text at the end of the sentence in square brackets [1], and at the end of the manuscript, they should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are mentioned in the text. Journal names should be abbreviated as listed in "Index Medicus" or "Tübitak/Ulakbim TR Index." References should be written in accordance with following examples:

Journal Articles;
Surnames of the authors must be written in full and only initials of the first name must be written (If number of authors is less than 6, list all authors. If the number exceeds 6, list 6 authors followed by et al.). Title of article. Abbreviated title of the journal according to Index Medicus (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/query.fcgi?db=nlmcatalog). Year of publication; Volume: first-page number-Last page number.

Example: Covey TJ, Golan D, Sergott R, Wilken J, Zarif M, Bumstead B, et al. Peering further into the mind's eye: combining visual evoked potential and optical coherence tomography measures enhances insight into the variance in cognitive functioning in multiple sclerosis. J Neurol 2024;271:658-673. doi: 10.1007/s00415-023-12075-5.

Supplement;
Surnames of the authors must be written in full and only initials of the first name must be written. Manuscript title. Abbreviated title of the journal according to Index Medicus (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/query.fcgi?db=nlmcatalog). Year of publication; Volume (supplement number): first-page number-Last page number.

Example: Wasylenski DA. The cost of schizophrenia. Can J Psychiatry 1994;39(Suppl 2):65-69.

Book;

Surnames of the authors must be written in full and only initials of the first name must be written. . Book title. Number of edition. City of publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.

Example: Ropper AH, Brown RH. Adams and Victor's Principles of Neurology. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005.

Book Chapter;

Surnames of the chapter editors must be written in full and only initials of the first name must be written. . Chapter title. In: Surnames of the editors must be written in full and only initials of the first name must be written. (eds). Book title. Edition number. City of publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Number of the first page of the chapter- number on the last page.

Example: Pender MP. Multiple sclerosis. In: Pender MP, McCombe PA (eds). Autoimmune Neurological Diseases. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995:89-154.

Congress presentation;

Surnames of the authors must be written in full and only initials of the first name must be written. (all authors should be written). Manuscript title. In: Surnames of the editors must be written in full and only initials of the first name must be written. Book title. Name of the meeting; City where the meeting took place, country where the meeting took place. Publisher; Year. Page number.

Example: Bengtsson S, Solheim BG. Enforcement of data protection, privacy, and security in medical informatics. In: Lun KC, Degoulet P, Piemme TE, Reinhoff O (eds). MEDINFO 92. Proceedings of the 7th World Congress on Medical Informatics; 1992 Sep 6-10; Geneva, Switzerland. North-Holland; 1992. p. 1561-1565.

Journal published electronically;

Surnames of the authors must be written in full and only initials of the first name must be written.

(all authors should be written). Article title. Abbreviation of the Journal according to Index Medicus. Year; Volume (Number). Available from: URL address. Access date: Day/Month/Year.

Example: Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious disease. Emerg Infect Dis 1995;1(1). Available from: URL: http://www.cdc.gov/nci-doc/EID/eid.htm. Accessed date:25.12.1999.

Website;
The name of the website. Access date. Available from: Address of the Web site.
World Health Organization (WHO). Access Date: 9 July 2008. Available from: http://www.who.int

Thesis;

Surnames of the authors must be written in full and only initials of the first name must be written.

Thesis title. Name of the city: university; year.

Example: Kanpolat Y. Trigeminal Gangliona Deneysel Perkütan Giriş ve Radyofrekans Termik Lezyonun Histopatolojik Değerlendirilmesi (Doçentlik Tezi). Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi; 1978.

Correction/Retraction
Authors must contact Editor-in-Chief in case of correction or retraction. For correction, the erratum, with all related information on previous and corrected data, will be published in the next issue upon notification of authors. The journal has the right to retract manuscripts in case of misconduct (data fabrication), honest error (miscalculation or experimental error), redundant publication, or ethical issues (plagiarism). Authors must contact Editor-in-Chief with official letter signed by all authors. To be successfully retracted, all authors must give the consent.

Copyright
After the publication decision is made and accepted, the "Copyright Transfer Form" should be attached to the submissions. The form can also be downloaded from the journal's article submission system. The Copyright Transfer Form must be signed by all contributing authors and a scanned version of this wet-signed document must be submitted.

By citing the author and the journal at the same time, without any profit-making motive, and only for educational purposes, the readers can copy the article without the permission of the copyright holder.

The TJN is an open-access publication, and the journal’s publication model is based on Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) declaration. All published content is available online, free of charge at https://tjn.org.tr/. The journal’s content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International License which permits third parties to share the content for non-commercial purposes, without any remix or adaptations and by giving the appropriate credit to the original work.

Online Archiving
All published articles are archived in the journal’s website, Journal’s Online Submission System, Ulakbim TR Dizin and other national and international indexes with their own repository systems.

Contact
Yeşim Gülşen Parman
İstanbul University, İstanbul Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurology
E-Mail: parmany@istanbul.edu.tr

Technical Contact
Çiğdem Eratak
Yazılım Parkı Bilişim Teknolojileri D.O.R.P. Ltd. Şti.
E-Mail: ceratak@yazilimparki.com.tr
Web Address: www.yazilimparki.com.tr