Genes, Brain and Behavior

Published jointly with the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society (IBANGS)

Edited by:
Wim E. Crusio

Print ISSN: 1601-1848
Online ISSN: 1601-183X
Frequency: Bi-monthly
Current Volume: 8 / 2009
ISI Journal Citation Reports® Ranking: 2008: 5/47 Behavioral Sciences; 53/219 Neurosciences
Impact Factor: 3.89

TopAuthor Guidelines

Author Guidelines

Electronic submission of manuscripts

Authors should submit online to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/g2b separate files for the text (as a .doc or .rtf Word document) and each figure (important: figure files should be no more than 2000x2000 pixels for review purposes), particularly for high quality images so that these can be reviewed by the referees. Alternatively, authors can submit a single .doc or .rtf file with embedded images (from which a PDF file will automatically be created upon upload). No hard copies are necessary at submission stage. The review process is entirely electronic-based and therefore facilitates faster reviewing of manuscripts. Authors who are unable to submit their manuscript online should contact the Editorial Office for assistance at the following address:

Genes, Brain and Behavior - Editorial Office
Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives
CNRS UMR 5106
Bat B2 - Avenue des Facultés
33405 Talence
France
Phone: +33 5 4000 8900
Fax: +33 5 4000 8743
E-mail: genes2b-editoff@yahoo.com

Authors may include supplementary information for the referees' inspection. The manuscript should be accompanied by a cover letter from the corresponding author, who should be clearly identified on the title page, and the cover letter should clearly indicate which of the authors (if any) are members of the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society (IBANGS). (The corresponding author for editorial purposes need not be the senior author, nor the person to whom correspondence is addressed after publication). Statements of equal contribution from more than one author are permitted. Authors are requested to upload suggestions for 4 referees and may also request the exclusion of up to 4 persons as possible referees, although these suggestions will not necessarily be followed.

If the manuscript includes personal communications, please provide a written statement of permission from any person who is quoted. Printouts of e-mail permission messages are acceptable.

The manuscript should be an original work, not published before and not being considered for publication elsewhere. For any material not owned by the author, permission from the copyright holder should have been obtained.

Figure files should be no more than 2000x2000 pixels for review purposes. However, upon acceptance, figures should be re-supplied as high resolution TIFF or EPS files. More information on our digital illustration standards can be obtained here.

Word 2007

Will authors please note that Word 2007 is not yet compatible with journal production systems. Unfortunately, the journal cannot accept Microsoft Word 2007 documents until such time as a stable production version is released. Please use Word's 'Save As' option therefore to save your document as an older (.doc) file type.

Pre-submission English-language editing

Authors for whom English is a second language may choose to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission to improve the English. A list of independent suppliers of editing services can be found at http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/english_language.asp. All services are paid for and arranged by the author, and use of one of these services does not guarantee acceptance or preference for publication.

Cover Letter

Authors should upload a cover letter in a separate file, which should contain the following information:
(i) An explicit statement that the manuscript (or parts thereof) has not been published before and is not being considered for publication elsewhere;
(ii) The word counts of the Abstract, Introduction, and Discussion;
(iii) A justification if the manuscript may be expected to exceed 10 printed journal pages (about 7000 words in total including references, tables, etc);
(iv) Which of the authors, if any, are members in good standing (i.e., current on their dues payments) of the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society (IBANGS).

It should be noted that the size of manuscripts intended for publication in supplements will be determined in consultation with the organizers of the supplement and are not subjected to any other word- and page limits.

OnlineOpen

OnlineOpen is available to authors of primary research articles who wish to make their article available to non-subscribers on publication, or whose funding agency requires grantees to archive the final version of their article. With OnlineOpen the author, the author's funding agency, or the author's institution pays a fee to ensure that the article is made available to non-subscribers upon publication via Wiley InterScience, as well as deposited in the funding agency's preferred archive. For the full list of terms and conditions, see http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/authorresources/onlineopen.html#OnlineOpen_Terms.

Any author wishing to send their paper OnlineOpen will be required to complete the payment form available here.

Prior to acceptance there is no requirement to inform an Editorial Office that you intend to publish your paper OnlineOpen if you do not wish to. All OnlineOpen articles are treated in the same way as any other article. They go through the journal's standard peer-review process and will be accepted or rejected based on their own merit.

Author Services

Online production tracking is now available for your article through Blackwell's Author Services. This enables authors to track their article - once it has been accepted - through the production process to publication online and in print. Authors can check the status of their articles online and choose to receive automated e-mails at key stages of production. The author will receive an e-mail with a unique link that enables them to register and have their article automatically added to the system. Please ensure that a complete e-mail address is provided when submitting the manuscript. Visit this page for more details on online production tracking and for a wealth of resources including FAQs and tips on article preparation, submission and more.

Online Accepted

Genes, Brain and Behavior offers Online Accepted for all articles. To learn more about this service, please read the document on the following web page: www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/HA_OnlineAcceptedv4_15_02_2005.doc

Page Charges

Articles longer than 7 pp. when in proof will be subject to a page charge for excess journal pages above that limit, at GBP50 per page above the 7-pp. limit. For IBANGS members, the charge is GBP50 for each page in excess of 10 pp. An invoice will be sent to authors for these charges upon print publication of their article. Authors will have to provide a justification in their cover letters in case their manuscripts may be expected to exceed 10 printed journal pages (approximately 7000 words in total).

Exclusive Licence Form

Authors will be required to sign an Exclusive Licence Form (ELF) for all papers accepted for publication. Signature of the ELF is a condition of publication and papers will not be passed to the publisher for production unless a signed form has been received. Please note that signature of the Exclusive Licence Form does not affect ownership of copyright in the material. (Government employees need to complete the Author Warranty sections, although copyright in such cases does not need to be assigned). After submission authors will retain the right to publish their paper in various medium/circumstances (please see the form for further details). Please download a copy of the form here and return it to the fax number on the second page upon acceptance of your article.

If you would like your Article to be published OnlineOpen, you can download the form here.

Author material archive policy

Please note that unless specifically requested, Blackwell Publishing will dispose of all hardcopy or electronic material submitted two months after publication. If you require the return of any material submitted, please inform the editorial office or production editor as soon as possible if you have not yet done so.

Types of papers accepted

Research Articles must describe significant and original observations and provide sufficient detail so that the observations can be critically evaluated and, if necessary, repeated. Articles dealing primarily with techniques, either describing a new technique or providing a review of the use of an existing technique, should be submitted as Techniques.

Proposals for Reviews are welcome; please contact the Editor in Chief directly at the Editorial Office address provided above. Review proposals should include a full-page summary of the proposed contents with key references. Reviews are selected for their broad general interest; all are refereed by experts in the field who are asked to comment on issues such as timeliness, general interest and balanced treatment of controversies, as well as on scientific accuracy. Reviews should take a broad view of the field rather than merely summarizing the authors own previous work, so extensive citation of the authors own publications is discouraged.

Genes, Brain and Behavior also publishes Commentaries, Debates, Letters to the Editor (on articles published in the Journal) and Book Reviews. Debates are generally two separate papers reflecting opposing views on a controversial issue. Commentaries are opinion pieces on topics of general interest to the behavioral neurogenetics community. They need not be confined to purely scientific topics; policy issues and social implications of behavioral and neural genetics may also be covered. Suggestions for Debates, Commentaries and Book Reviews are welcome. Because Genes, Brain and Behavior offers very rapid online publication for all accepted papers and authors are urged to be as succinct as possible, there are no 'Rapid Communications' or 'Short Communications' categories.

Organization of Research Articles
Authors should pay special attention to the presentation of their findings so that they may be communicated clearly. Technical jargon should be avoided as much as possible and clearly explained where its use is unavoidable. Abbreviations should also be kept to a minimum, particularly those that are not standard. The background and hypotheses underlying the study, as well as its main conclusions, should be clearly explained. Titles and abstracts especially should be written in language that will be readily intelligible to any scientist.

Title: must be concise and contain no more than 100 characters including spaces. The title page should include a running title of no more than 50 characters; 5-10 key words, complete names of institutions for each author, and the name, address, telephone number, fax number and e-mail address for the corresponding author. The title page should also include the date of submission (or revision/resubmission) and the numbers of words in the Abstract, Introduction, and Discussion sections of the paper.

Abbreviations: Genes, Brain and Behavior adheres to the conventions outlined in Units, Symbols and Abbreviations: A Guide for Medical and Scientific Editors and Authors. Non-standard abbreviations must be used three or more times and written out completely in the text when first used.

Abstract: is limited to 250 words in length and should not contain abbreviations. References must be cited in full.

Main Text

Introduction: should be focused, outlining the historical or logical origins of the study and not summarize the results, and is limited to 500 words in length; exhaustive literature reviews are not appropriate.

Materials and Methods: must contain sufficient detail such that, in combination with the references cited, all experiments reported can be fully reproduced. As a condition of publication, authors are required to make materials and methods used freely available to academic researchers for their own use. This includes antibodies and the constructs used to make transgenic animals, although not the animals themselves. Papers reporting protein or DNA sequences and crystallographic structure determinations will not be accepted without a Genbank or Brookhaven accession number, respectively. Other supporting data sets must be made available on the publication date from the authors directly.

(i) Experimental Subjects: When human subjects are used, manuscripts must be accompanied by a statement that the experiments were undertaken with the understanding and written consent of each subject. Authors should be aware of the Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki), which has been printed in the British Medical Journal (18 July 1964).
When experimental animals are used the methods section must clearly indicate that adequate measures were taken to minimize pain or discomfort. Experiments should be carried out in accordance with the Guidelines laid down by the National Institute of Health (NIH) in the USA regarding the care and use of animals for experimental procedures or with the European Communities Council Directive of 24 November 1986 (86/609/EEC).
All studies using human or animal subjects should include an explicit statement in the Material and Methods section identifying the review and approval committee for each study, if applicable. Editors reserve the right to reject papers if there is doubt as to whether appropriate procedures have been used.
(ii) Suppliers:
Suppliers of materials should be named and, with the exception of well-known suppliers, such as Sigma, Kodak and Zeiss, their location (town, state/county, country) included.

Results: should present the observations with minimal reference to earlier literature or to possible interpretations.

Discussion: may usefully start with a brief summary of the major findings, but repetition of parts of the abstract or of the results section should be avoided. The Discussion section is limited to 1500 words.

References: should follow the Harvard style of references, outlined below, and should be cited in the text as: 'White (2001) has shown...' or '...as shown earlier (Blanc & White, 1999; Weiss et al., 2000)'. When different groups of authors with the same first author and year of publication occur, they should be cited thus, Weiss et al. (2000a,b), to differentiate clearly between them. Multiple citations should be listed alphabetically by author surname. References should be listed at the end of the manuscript in alphabetical order according to the name of the first author and chronologically where several papers by the same author are listed. The list of references should include only articles that have been published or are currently in press. In press manuscripts that are necessary to understand and evaluate the submitted manuscript must be included at the time of submission. In all cases, the full list of authors should be provided, and journal titles should be abbreviated following Index Medicus. Published conference abstracts and URLs for web sites should be cited parenthetically in the text, not in the reference list. Grant details and acknowledgements are not permitted as numbered references.

We recommend the use of a tool such as EndNote or Reference Manager for reference management and formatting.
EndNote reference styles can be searched for here:
http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp

Reference Manager reference styles can be searched for here:
http://www.refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp

An adapted profile for G2B can be downloaded here.

Journal Article
Podhorna, J. & Brown, R.E. (2002) Strain differences in activity and emotionality do not account for differences in learning and memory performance between C57BL/6 and DBA/2 mice. Genes Brain Behav 1, 96-110.

Article in Book
Katz, D.I. (1997) Traumatic brain injury. In Mills, V.M., Cassidy, J.W. & Katz, D.I. (eds), Neurologic Rehabilitation. A Guide to Diagnosis, Prognosis and Treatment Planning. Blackwell Science Ltd, Oxford, pp. 105-143.

Complete Book
Matthews, G.G. (1997) Neurobiology. Blackwell Science Ltd, Oxford.

Symposia contributions should take a similar format to books, including the place and date of the meeting, the name and location of the organizer/publisher, both overall and contribution titles, all authors and Editors names, and page number(s):
Fuss, S.H., Çelik, A. & Korsching, S.I. (2001) Levels of olfactory information processing in the zebrafish olfactory bulb. In Elsner, N. & Kreuzberg, G.W. (eds), Göttingen Neurobiology Report 2001. Proceedings of the 4th Meeting of the German Neuroscience Society 2001, Vol. II, 28th Göttingen Neurobiology Conference. Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart, p. 474.

Acknowledgements: should follow the References. Genes, Brain and Behavior requires that all sources of institutional, private and corporate financial support for the work within the manuscript must be fully acknowledged, and any potential conflicts of interest noted. Grant or contribution numbers may be acknowledged, and principal grant holders should be listed. Acknowledgments should be brief and should not include thanks to anonymous referees and editors.

Figures: All figures should be planned to fit within either 1 column width (8.0 cm), 1.5 column widths (13.0 cm) or 2 column widths (17.0 cm), and must be suitable for photocopy reproduction from the printed version of the manuscript. Lettering on figures should be in a clear, sans serif typeface (e.g. Helvetica); if possible, the same typeface should be used for all figures in a paper. After reduction for publication, upper-case text and numbers should be at least 1.5-2.0 mm high (10 point Helvetica). After reduction symbols should be at least 2.0-3.0 mm high (10 point). In general, multi-part figures should be arranged as they would appear in the final version. Reduction to the scale that will be used on the page is not necessary, but any special requirements (such as the separation distance of stereo pairs) should be clearly specified.

Unnecessary figures and parts (panels) of figures should be avoided: data presented in small tables or histograms, for instance, can generally be stated briefly in the text instead. Figures should not contain more than one panel unless the parts are logically connected; each panel of a multipart figure should be sized so that the whole figure can be reduced by the same amount and reproduced on the printed page at the smallest size at which essential details are visible.

Figures should be on a white background, and should avoid excessive boxing, unnecessary color, shading and/or, decorative effects (e.g. 3-dimensional skyscraper histograms) and highly pixelated computer drawings. The vertical axis of histograms should not be truncated to exaggerate small differences. The line spacing should be wide enough to remain clear on reduction to the minimum acceptable printed size.

Figures divided into parts should be labeled with a lower-case, boldface, roman letter, a, b, and so on, in the same typesize as used elsewhere in the figure. Lettering in figures should be in lower-case type, with the first letter capitalized. Units should have a single space between the number and the unit, and follow SI nomenclature or the nomenclature common to a particular field. Thousands should be separated by thin spaces (1 000). Unusual units or abbreviations should be spelled out in full or defined in the legend. Scale bars should be used rather than magnification factors, with the length of the bar defined in the legend rather than on the bar itself. In general, visual cues (on the figures themselves) are preferred to verbal explanations in the legend (e.g. broken line, open red triangles etc.)

Please read our electronic artwork guidelines before submitting figures to ensure that they are in the correct format and resolution for print reproduction.

Color figures
It is the policy of Genes, Brain and Behavior for authors to pay the full cost for the reproduction in print of their color artwork. Therefore, please note that if there is color artwork in your manuscript when it is accepted for publication, Blackwell Publishing requires you to complete and return a color work agreement form before your paper can be published. This form can be downloaded as a PDF* here. If you are unable to download the form, please contact the Production Editor at: Production Editor, Genes, Brain & Behavior, Wiley Services Singapore Pte Ltd, 600 North Bridge Road, #05-01 Parkview Square, (S) 188 778, Singapore (gbb@wiley.com) and they will be able to email or FAX a form to you. Once completed, please return the form to the Production Editor at the address above. Any article received by Blackwell Publishing with color work will not be published until the form has been returned.

In the event that an author is not able to cover the costs of reproducing colour figures in colour in the printed version of the journal, Genes, Brain and Behavior offers authors the opportunity to reproduce colour figures in colour for free in the online version of the article (but they will still appear in black and white in the print version). If an author wishes to take advantage of this free colour-on-the-web service, they should liaise with the Editorial Office to ensure that the appropriate documentation is completed for the Publisher.

* To read PDF files, you must have Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. If you don not have this program, this is available as a free download from the following web address:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Permissions
If all or parts of previously published illustrations are to be used, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder concerned.

Figure Legends: should be a separate section of the manuscript, and should begin with a brief title for the whole figure and continue with a short description of each panel and the symbols used; they should not contain any details of methods.

Tables: should be double-spaced with no vertical rulings, with a single bold ruling beneath the column titles. Units of measurements must be included in the column title.

Submission of Supplementary Materials
Supplementary material can be published as web materials on the Blackwell Synergy site at the Editor's discretion. In order to provide long term access to such supplementary information the Editor will generally prefer to see the material mounted on the Synergy site rather than on authors' sites. The supplementary material will be accessible by hot links from the on-line version of Genes, Brain and Behavior. Authors are responsible for the preparation of supplementary material, which should be supplied in a format that will be most accessible by readers (e.g. Excel for tables, PDF or Word for text and TIFF/EPS for figures etc). Supplementary video clips may be submitted on 100 MB Zip, DVD or CD-ROM disk for inclusion in Genes, Brain and Behavior on Wiley Interscience (www3.interscience.wiley.com). Video clips must be referenced in the text and representative micrographs included in the print version of Genes, Brain and Behavior. Movie clips should not be larger than 5 MB, and run for no longer than 1 minute. For more information on supplementary material, please see our guidelines at http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/bauthor/suppmat.asp

Publication Schedule

Papers that do not conform to the general aims and scope of the journal will be returned immediately without review. All other manuscripts will be reviewed by experts in the field (generally two reviewers and an Editor). Genes, Brain and Behavior aims to forward reviewers comments and to inform the corresponding author of the result of the review process within 5 weeks of receipt of the manuscript by the Editorial Office. Revised manuscripts will be considered at the discretion of the editors, and may be subject to re-review. Manuscripts will be considered for 'fast-track publication' under special circumstances after consultation with the Editor-in-Chief.

Online Early

Genes, Brain and Behavior is covered by Blackwell Publishing's Online Early service. Online Early articles are complete full-text articles published online in advance of their publication in a printed issue. Articles are therefore available as soon as they are ready, rather than having to wait for the next scheduled print issue and will also be included in PubMed as 'epub ahead of print' at this stage. Online Early articles are complete and final. They have been fully reviewed, revised and edited for publication, and the authors' final corrections have been incorporated. Because they are in final form, no changes can be made after online publication. The nature of Online Early articles means that they do not yet have volume, issue or page numbers, so Online Early articles cannot be cited in the traditional way. They are therefore given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows the article to be cited and tracked before it is allocated to an issue. After print publication, the DOI remains valid and can continue to be used to cite and access the article. To receive an e-mail alert once your paper has been published, please see this page.

Proofs

The corresponding author will receive an email alert containing a link to a web site. A working e-mail address must therefore be provided for the corresponding author. The proof can be downloaded as a PDF (portable document format) file from this site. Acrobat Reader will be required in order to read this file. This software can be downloaded (free of charge) from the following web site:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.

This will enable the file to be opened, read on screen and printed out in order for any corrections to be added. Further instructions will be sent with the proof. Hard copy proofs will be posted if no e-mail address is available. Excessive changes made by the author in the proofs, excluding typesetting errors, will be charged separately.

Offprints

A PDF offprint of the online published article will be provided free of charge to the corresponding author, and may be distributed subject to the Publisher's terms and conditions. Paper offprints of the printed published article may be purchased if ordered via the method stipulated on the instructions that will accompany the proofs. Printed offprints are posted to the correspondence address given for the paper unless a different address is specified when ordered. Note that it is not uncommon for printed offprints to take up to eight weeks to arrive after publication of the journal. Electronic offprints are sent to the first author at his or her first email address on the title page of the paper, unless advised otherwise; therefore please ensure that the name, address and email of the receiving author are clearly indicated on the manuscript title page if he or she is not the first author of the paper.