Founded in 1944, the flagship journal of the AANS is recognized throughout the world by neurosurgeons and related medical specialists for its authoritative and cutting-edge articles. The Journal of Neurosurgery is the most referenced journal specific to neurosurgery in publication, according to Clarivate's Journal Citation Reports™. The Editors and Editorial Boards encourage submission of clinical and laboratory studies, technical notes on instruments or equipment that is innovative or useful to clinicians and researchers in the field of neuroscience, as well as reviews, papers on historical persons or events related to neurosurgery, and letters to the editor.
For questions or assistance with submission, please email the JNSPG Peer Review Team.
Any manuscript that does not meet formatting requirements will be returned for correction before peer review.
Please note that all submissions are screened through iThenticate Plagiarism Prevention software.
All manuscripts are assigned to an Associate Editor for initial review and triage. Manuscripts that are immediately deemed inappropriate for the journal are rapidly rejected with comments from the assigned Associate Editor.
All remaining manuscripts are sent out for peer review. Peer review for JNS is single-blind, and reviews are performed consecutively. Papers are assigned to a minimum of 3 reviewers. Reviews are performed by members of the journal’s Editorial Board with a small group of ad hoc reviewers providing input on an as-needed basis. The Deputy Editor reviews all manuscript submissions. The EIC and/or Deputy Editor reviews all manuscripts and reviewer comments before making final decisions regarding publication. Papers that have been rejected from JNS will ONLY be considered for publication in JNS: Case Lessons or Neurosurgical Focus.
In accordance with International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations, the journal requires Editorial Board members to recuse themselves from the review process if they hold conflicts of interest or relationships that pose potential conflicts related to any articles under their direct consideration. For more information, please visit the ICMJE’s position on the reporting of conflicts of interest.
To ensure that submissions are correctly formatted, we encourage all authors to use our Manuscript Template. As a part of manuscript submission, authors are required to complete and upload the New Submission Checklist. The Revision Checklist must be completed and uploaded when submitting revisions.
For specific information regarding requirements for your manuscript type, please refer to our Manuscript Types and Limits Policy.
When preparing their manuscript, authors should follow reporting requirements specific to their subject matter. These requirement guidelines can be accessed via the EQUATOR Network website. At the time of submission, authors should submit the appropriate checklist with their paper.
The JNSPG now offers an open access license for a fee of $3000 (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]; see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) for accepted manuscripts in our print journals. This option is available for manuscripts following acceptance and has no bearing on publication decisions.
Manuscripts posted to a preprint server must adhere to our Preprint Policy.
The JNSPG does not charge a submission or publication fees for the Journal of Neurosurgery; however, there are enhancements that do carry a charge including:
Journal of Neurosurgery articles are indexed in: