About

Aims and scope

Molecular Brain is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers manuscripts on all aspects of studies on the nervous system at the molecular, cellular, and systems level providing a forum for scientists to communicate their findings.

Molecular brain research is a rapidly expanding research field in which integrative approaches at the genetic, molecular, cellular and synaptic levels yield key information about the physiological and pathological brain. These studies involve the use of a wide range of modern techniques in molecular biology, genomics, proteomics, imaging and electrophysiology.

Open access

All articles published by Molecular Brain are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here.

As authors of articles published in Molecular Brain you are the copyright holders of your article and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate your article, according to the BMC license agreement.

For those of you who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, BMC can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.

Article-processing charges

Open access publishing is not without costs. Molecular Brain therefore levies an article-processing charge of £2190.00/$2990.00/€2490.00 for Research, Review, Meeting report, Methodology and Short report articles accepted for publication, plus VAT or local taxes where applicable. For Micro report articles accepted for publication, Molecular Brain levies an article-processing charge of £1245/$1750/€1465, plus VAT or local taxes where applicable.

If the corresponding author's institution participates in our open access membership program, some or all of the publication cost may be covered (more details available on the membership page). We routinely waive charges for authors from low-income countries. For other countries, article-processing charge waivers or discounts are granted on a case-by-case basis to authors with insufficient funds. Authors can request a waiver or discount during the submission process. For further details, see our article-processing charge page.

BMC provides a free open access funding support service to help authors discover and apply for article processing charge funding. Visit our OA funding and policy support page to view our list of research funders and institutions that provide funding for APCs, and to learn more about our email support service.

Indexing services

All articles published in Molecular Brain are included in:

CAS
Citebase
DOAJ
Embase
EmBiology
Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition
MEDLINE
OAIster
PsycINFO
PubMed
PubMed Central
Science Citation Index Expanded
SCImago
Scopus
SOCOLAR
Zetoc

The full text of all articles is deposited in digital archives around the world to guarantee long-term digital preservation. You can also access all articles published by BioMed Central on SpringerLink.

Peer-review policy

Peer-review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help editors determine whether the manuscript should be published in their journal. You can read more about the peer-review process here.

Molecular Brain operates a single-blind peer-review system, where the reviewers are aware of the names and affiliations of the authors, but the reviewer reports provided to authors are anonymous. The benefits of single-blind peer-review is that it is the traditional model of peer review that many reviewers are comfortable with, and it facilitates a dispassionate critique of a manuscript.

Submitted manuscripts will generally be reviewed by two or more experts who will be asked to evaluate whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, whether it duplicates already published work, and whether or not the manuscript is sufficiently clear for publication. The Editors will reach a decision based on these reports and, where necessary, they will consult with members of the Editorial Board.

We feel that high-quality data should be published promptly, without unnecessary delay. In our experience, reviewers sometimes request additional time-consuming experiments, although the data are already valid and ready for publication. If a manuscript lacks necessary experiments or controls in order to support its conclusions, it will be returned to the authors so they are able to take the time they need to re-visit their data outside of Molecular Brain’s submission system.

Editorial policies

All manuscripts submitted to Molecular Brain should adhere to BioMed Central's editorial policies.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Citing articles in Molecular Brain

Articles in Molecular Brain should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Article citations follow this format:

Authors: Title. Mol Brain [year], [volume number]:[article number].

e.g. Roberts LD, Hassall DG, Winegar DA, Haselden JN, Nicholls AW, Griffin JL: Increased hepatic oxidative metabolism distinguishes the action of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor delta from Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma in the Ob/Ob mouse. Mol Brain 2009, 1:115.

refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.

Appeals and complaints

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should follow the procedure outlined in the BMC Editorial Policies .

Benefits of publishing with BMC

High visibility

Molecular Brain's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience.

Speed of publication

Molecular Brain offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files). Articles will be published with their final citation after acceptance, in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF.

Flexibility

Online publication in Molecular Brain gives you the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other articles).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in Molecular Brain are included in article alerts and regular email updates. Some may be highlighted on Molecular Brain’s pages and on the BMC homepage.

In addition, articles published in Molecular Brain may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in Molecular Brain. A list of articles recently press-released by journals published by BMC is available here.

Copyright

As an author of an article published in Molecular Brain you retain the copyright of your article and you are free to reproduce and disseminate your work (for further details, see the BMC license agreement).

For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from BMC, please click here.