About

Aims and scope

Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders is an open access journal that integrates current, cutting-edge research across a number of disciplines, including neurobiology, genetics, cognitive neuroscience, psychiatry and psychology. The journal’s primary focus is on the pathogenesis of neurodevelopmental disorders including autism, fragile X syndrome, tuberous sclerosis, Turner Syndrome, 22q Deletion Syndrome, Prader-Willi and Angelman Syndrome, Williams syndrome, lysosomal storage diseases, dyslexia, specific language impairment and fetal alcohol syndrome. With the discovery of specific genes underlying neurodevelopmental syndromes, the emergence of powerful tools for studying neural circuitry, and the development of new approaches for exploring molecular mechanisms, interdisciplinary research on the pathogenesis of neurodevelopmental disorders is now increasingly common. Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders provides a unique venue for researchers interested in comparing and contrasting mechanisms and characteristics related to the pathogenesis of the full range of neurodevelopmental disorders, sharpening our understanding of the etiology and relevant phenotypes of each condition.

Open access

All articles published by Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders 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 Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders 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. Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders therefore levies an article-processing charge of £1890.00/$2690.00/€2290.00 for each article accepted for publication, plus VAT or local taxes where applicable. The APC is determined at the date of acceptance.

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.

Visit Springer Nature’s open access funding & support services for information about research funders and institutions that provide funding for APCs.

Springer Nature offers agreements that enable institutions to cover open-access publishing costs. Learn more about our open access agreements to check your eligibility and discover whether this journal is included.

For more information on APCs please see our Journal Pricing FAQs

Indexing services

All articles published in Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders are included in:

BIOSIS
Current contents
DOAJ
EmCare
Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition
MEDLINE
PsycINFO
PubMed
PubMed Central
Science Citation Index Expanded
Scopus

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.

Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders 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 benefit 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.

Manuscripts submitted to Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders will be evaluated initially by the Editor-in-Chief, and then assigned to an Associate Editor who is responsible for overseeing the peer-review process. The reports of at least two reviewers will be considered when deciding on acceptance or rejection of a manuscript; a further reviewer may be invited in cases where these reviewers disagree. Final decisions rest with the Associate Editors and Editor-in-Chief, who aim to provide an initial decision within six weeks. In cases where authors challenge an Editor's negative decision with well-founded arguments, the manuscript can be sent to one or two additional reviewers at the discretion of the Editors, and a final decision will be made upon their recommendations.

Editorial policies

All manuscripts submitted to Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders 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 Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Articles in Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders 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. J Neurodev Disord [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. J Neurodev Disord 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

Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders'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

Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders 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 Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders 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 Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders are included in article alerts and regular email updates. Some may be highlighted on Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders’s pages and on the BMC homepage.

In addition, articles published in Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders 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 Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders. A list of articles recently press-released by journals published by BMC is available here.

Copyright

As an author of an article published in Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders 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.