Article types accepted

* These article types may be eligible for APC waivers or discounts under one of the agreements Cambridge University Press has made to support open access.

Original Research*: Articles in this category should present methodologically sound, new original study data. Suitable topics include mood disorders, schizophrenia and related disorders, personality disorders, substance-use disorders, anxiety disorders, neuroscience, psychosocial aspects of psychiatry, child psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry, and other topics of interest to clinicians in psychiatry, psychology, mental health disciplines, and neurology, and/or to clinical investigators in the neurosciences.

Reviews*: We accept reviews in several different formats, including short reviews, which should be concise, accessible, accurate and precise reviews of recent research and emergent areas. These may include speculation and debate, but this should be clearly indicated. Reviews should focus on published authoritative and recent data from the past 2–3 years. The introduction should be aimed at non-specialists and indicate the timeliness and rationale for the article. Inclusion of didactic and explanatory illustrations is strongly encouraged, especially those that provide a visual summary of the most important points of the article. A summary section at the end of the article is also strongly encouraged with a short collection of statements that convent the recent advances in the field that motivate the review. There is no limit to the word count; however, the ideal length is 3,000 words.

We also accept regular scholarly reviews up to 6000 words, as well as systematic reviews and meta-analyses, all three of which must include structured abstracts.

The case-based review article should be formatted as a literature review, with several (at least 3) case examples. These should be included along with the other elements of a good review, and it should also be based on secondary sources while addressing several cases. In addition, it must have a psychopharmacological and/or clinical neuroscientific focus.

Perspectives*: A perspective article is a type of review that is a short, focused summary of a single recent advance, a sort of spotlight on the topic, which could be for example a single point hypothesis or a novel model. It can to stimulate debate and new research.

Guidelines*: A guideline can include outputs from professional organizations, or groups of professionals who have worked together to develop direction in a given field.  

This can also include meta-guidelines, which are "guidelines of guidelines" put together by several leading figures in a field in which there are multiple competing guidelines that require synthesis and updating. This can also include “guidance” if the authors prefer this designation, or “expert consensus” with those experts involved being listed as coauthors if that is deemed more appropriate by the authors.  All of these outline diagnostic and treatment options and medications; includes an abstract, introduction, optional additional text, and 15-25 tables and/or figures.

Letters to the Editor: Letters to the Editor will be published at the Editor's discretion. Letters may discuss previously published papers in the journal but should not be used to communicate new research. A maximum word count of 1,000 is requested, along with a maximum of 5 references.

Brainstorms (by invitation only): Brainstorms are editorials or comments, not directed towards content in the current issue, which provide a short background and overview of a current topic in the field, ongoing controversy, or evolving point of view. These often provide illustrations in order to inform readers and set a context for them for the editorial opinion and commentary also included.

Editorials: Editorials may be used to introduce a new idea or particular theme, and they may also introduce the subject being brought into focus in a special issue or thematic section. Generally discursive in nature, an editorial will most likely form a short opinion piece or reflection upon the field but not constitute a full article.

CNS Spectrums does not accept Case Reports.

Summary of Article Types and Requirements

Article type	Length	Abstract	Figures/ Tables	Purpose/ features
Original research	6,000 words   Up to 100 references	Structured ≤ 250 words No citations	Minimum 2 tables and/or figures	Original Research: Reports the results of a formal study based on original research.
Review	No limit, but the ideal amount is 3,000 words No limit, but ideally, up to 30 references	Unstructured (for Reviews, including short reviews) or Structured (systematic reviews and meta-analyses) ≤ 250 words No citations	Minimum 2 tables and/or figures Maximum 6 tables and/or figures	Review: Written as a literature review of an established topic, as suggested by its name.
Case-based review article	2,500 words	Unstructured, ≤ 250 words	Minimum 2 tables and/or figures Maximum 6 tables and/or figures	The case-based review article should be formatted as a literature review, with several, at least 3, case examples. In addition, it must have a psychopharmacological and/or clinical neuroscientific focus.
Perspectives	3,000 words 30–60 references	Unstructured ≤ 150 words No citations	Minimum 2 tables and/or figures Maximum 6 tables and/or figures	Perspective: A type of review that is a short, focused summary of a single recent advance, a sort of spotlight on the topic, which could be for example a single point hypothesis or a novel model.  It can stimulate debate and new research.
Guidelines	6,000 words	Unstructured ≤ 250 words No citations	15-25 tables and/or figures	Guidelines: A guideline can include outputs from professional organizations, or groups of professionals who have worked together to develop direction in a given field.  This can also include meta-guidelines, which are "guidelines of guidelines" put together by several leading figures in a field in which there are multiple competing guidelines that require synthesis and updating. This can also include “guidance” if the authors prefer this designation, or “expert consensus” with those experts involved being listed as coauthors if that is deemed more appropriate by the authors.  All of these outline diagnostic and treatment options and medications; includes an abstract, introduction, optional additional text, and 15-25 tables and/or figures.
Editorial	900 – 1,500 words	Unstructured  ≤ 150 words No citations For editorials, abstracts are optional.	1 table or 1 figure (excluding invited guest editorials for thematic issues)	Editorial: Introduces a new idea or a particular theme, usually written by the editor-in-chief and occasionally submitted by a guest editor. A luminary in the field might also be approached to provide a guest editorial. The journal considers both solicited and unsolicited editorial submissions, provided that the subject matter is appropriate.
Letter to the Editor	1,000 words, max 5 references	No abstract	Discouraged	Letters may discuss previously published papers in the journal but should not be used to communicate new research.

Author list: Please list names as they should appear in the published version. One author must be identified as the 'corresponding author.'

On the title page of the uploaded manuscript file, please list the designated corresponding author’s contact information, in the way that person would want it to appear publicly (please note that we don’t publish phone numbers). In this section only, please also include the corresponding author’s main academic degree (for example, MD, PhD, MBBS, etc.).

Footnotes and endnotes are not permitted. If you decide to include any text at the bottom of your table(s) and/or figure(s), please exclude any dividing lines preceding that text.

Clinical Implications

Where appropriate, authors of Reviews, Perspectives, and Meta-Guidelines may elect to also include a number of Clinical Implication points to be presented in addition to the Abstract and Conclusion. These will be most appropriate for articles that discuss material from preclinical studies and will be used to explain the findings and comment on their possible clinical applications. Authors may include 3 to 5 points that are constructed as full sentences. They should be clear, unambiguous, and aid the comprehension of the material being discussed. Clinical Implications will be assessed as part of the peer review process and authors may be asked to alter and update the points, or to remove them if they are not felt to add to the article.

Neuroscience-based Nomenclature (NbN-2) Terminology

CNS Spectrums encourages the use of Neuroscience-based Nomenclature (NbN-2) terminology for psychotropic medications, as it reflects contemporary pharmacological knowledge, rather than arbitrary descriptors based on indications or chemical structure. Please download the free app for NbN-2 (http://nbnomenclature.org/) and the NbN-2 Instructions for Authors (http://nbnomenclature.org/authors).

While you are welcome to use NbN-2 throughout the manuscript, as a minimum requirement we ask that on first mention in the paper, substances are referred to by their NbN-2 classification. In addition, we ask that all substances studied in the paper receive NbN-2 compliant keywords (e.g. eleven pharmacological domains and nine mode of action). 

Preparing your article for submission

Original Research: Articles should be separated into the following sections:

• Title page (including Author List)
• Structured Abstract (Objective, Methods, Results, Conclusion; no more than 250 words)
• Keywords
• Introduction
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion 
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgements
• Funding
• Competing interests
• References
• Tables and/or Figures (minimum of two)
• Preferred formats: mpg/mpeg, mp4 or mov

Reviews and Perspectives should be arranged in the following order:

• Title page (including Author List)
• Unstructured Abstract (for Reviews, including short reviews, and Perspectives); no more than 250 words

or Structured Abstract (for systematic review articles and meta-analyses) (Objective, Methods, Results, Conclusion; no more than 250 words)

• Introduction
• Body
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgements
• Funding
• Competing interests
• References

Reference style

Please use American Medical Association (AMA) style. References should be superscripted in text, then numbered, and comprehensive in list. Please number these references in the order that they appear in the text. These superscript numbers in the text should match the numbers and order of the references in the reference list (you should not list the references in alphabetical order). List all authors when there are six or fewer; for seven or more authors, list only the first three and add "et al." (please note that this excludes authors of citations listed in tables and figures). Abbreviations of journals' names should conform to the style used in Index Medicus; journals that are not indexed there should not be abbreviated. When following this format, please do not list any reference in your reference list more than once. See the following examples:

Journals:

Goodkin K, Antoni MH, Helder L, Sevin B. Psychoneuroimmunological aspects of disease progression among women and human papillomavirus-associated cervical dysplasia and human immunodeficiency virus type 1 coinfection. Int J Psychiatry Med. 1993;23(2):119–148.

Books:

Raine A. The Psychopathology of Crime: Criminal Behavior as a Clinical Disorder. San Diego, Calif: Academic Press; 1993.

Parts of Books: Thase ME, Rush AJ. Treatment-resistant depression. In: Bloom FK, Kupfer DJ, eds. Psychopharmacology: The Fourth Generation of Progress. Baltimore, MD: Raven Press Ltd; 1995:1081–1097.

Unpublished Materials:

Eisenberg J. Market forces and physician workforce reform: why they may not work. Paper presented at: Annual Meeting of the Association of American Medical Colleges; October 28, 1995; Washington, DC.

Jones JL, Hanson DL, Dworkin MS, Kaplan JE, Ward JW. Incidence and trends in AIDS-related opportunistic illnesses in injecting drug users and men who have sex with men. In: Program and abstracts of the XI International Conference on AIDS; July 7–12, 1996; Vancouver, British Columbia. Abstract We.C.3418.

Klassen TP, Watters LK, Feldman ME, Sutcliffe T, Rowe PC. The efficacy of nebulized budesonide in dexamethasone-treated outpatients with croup. Pediatrics. In press.

Artwork, Figures, and Other Graphics

Tables, figures, and images must be cited in the text, for example (see Table 1). They should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals and captioned appropriately. Tables should appear in an editable format at the end of the article (figures should be submitted as separate figure files). Neither should not be interspersed in the text. For detailed information on figure preparation, please see the Cambridge Journals Artwork Guide.

Reproduction of copyright material: Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. A copy of the paperwork granting permission should be provided to the Cambridge production editor. You may be asked to pay a permissions fee by the copyright holder; any permissions fees must be paid for by the author. For an example of a permissions request form please see the Cambridge Journals Artwork Guide.

Competing interests

Authors must include a Competing interests declaration (formerly titled 'Disclosures' or ‘Conflicts of interest declaration’) in their manuscript when they submit, which should be published in their article. These include any situation that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on an author’s presentation of their work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.

If the manuscript has multiple authors, the Competing interest declarations should list all contributing authors, e.g., “Competing interests. Author A is employed at company B. Author C owns shares in company D, is on the Board of company E and is a member of organisation F. Author G has received grants from company H in the past.”

If one or more coauthors do not have anything to disclose, please include that information in this section.

Ethical considerations 

Where research involves human and/or animal experimentation, the following statements should be included (as applicable) in the Methods section: "The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008." and "The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional guides on the care and use of laboratory animals." Articles reporting randomised trials must conform to the standards set by the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) consortium. Authors are also required to abide by the ICMJE guidelines regarding informed consent.

Authors should also review our standard ethics policies prior to submission.

Clinical Trials 

As a condition of consideration for publication, registration of clinical trials in a public trials registry is required. A clinical trial is defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (in accordance with the definition of the World Health Organisation) as any research project that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health- related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes. Trials must be registered before the start of patient enrollment. The registry must be accessible to the public at no charge. It must be open to all prospective registrants and managed by a not-for-profit organization. There must be a mechanism to ensure the validity of the registration data, and the registry should be electronically searchable. An acceptable registry must include at minimum a unique trial number, trial registration date, secondary identification information if assigned by sponsors or others, funding source(s), primary and secondary sponsor(s), responsible contact person, research contact person, official scientific title of the study, research ethics review, the medical condition being studied, intervention(s), key inclusion and exclusion criteria, study type, anticipated trial start date, target sample size, recruitment status, primary outcome, and key secondary outcomes. Registration information must be provided at the time of submission. Trial registry name, registration identification number, and the URL for the registry should be included at the end of the abstract.

Manuscripts reporting the results of randomized controlled trials should include a "CONSORT" flow diagram as a figure in the manuscript to illustrate the progress of all patients in the study (See: Schulz KF, Altman D, for the CONSORT Group. The CON- SORT statement: revised recommendations for improving the quality of reports of parallel-group randomized trials. JAMA. 2001;285(15):1987–1991.)

Acknowledgements 

Authors can use this section to acknowledge and thank colleagues, institutions, workshop organizers, family members, etc that have helped with the research and/or writing process. It is important that that any type of funding information or financial support listed under ‘Financial Support’ rather than Acknowledgements so that it can easily be tagged and captured separately.

We are aware that authors sometimes receive assistance from technical writers, language editors and/or writing agencies in preparing manuscripts for publication. Such assistance must be noted in the cover letter and in the Acknowledgements section along with a declaration that the author(s) are entirely responsible for the scientific content of the paper. Failure to acknowledge assistance from technical writers, language editors and/or writing agencies in preparing manuscripts for publication in the cover letter and in the Acknowledgements section may lead to disqualification of the paper. Authors may use the format “The author(s) thank [name and qualifications] of [company, city, country] for providing [medical/technical/language] writing support/editorial support [specify and/or expand as appropriate], which was funded by [sponsor, city, country]."

Funding 

Within this section please provide details of the sources of financial support for all authors, including grant numbers, for example: “This work was supported by the Medical Research Council (grant number XXXXXXX)”.

Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma and space, and where research was funded by more than one agency the different agencies should be separated by a semi-colon, with “and” before the final funder. Grants held by different authors should be identified as belonging to individual authors by the authors’ initials, for example: “This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust (AB, grant numbers XXXX, YYYY), (CD, grant number ZZZZ); the Natural Environment Research Council (EF, grant number FFFF); and the National Institutes of Health (AB, grant number GGGG), (EF, grant number HHHH).”

Where no specific funding has been provided for research, please provide the following statement: “This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.”