Last Updated: June 26, 2025

Welcome to the Core Reports preprint platform. These guidelines provide essential information for authors preparing and submitting their manuscripts. Our goal is to facilitate the rapid and open dissemination of scientific research. Please review these instructions carefully before submitting your manuscript.

1. Introduction to Core Reports Preprints

Core Reports is a preprint platform dedicated to the immediate and open sharing of scientific research. A preprint is a full draft of a scientific manuscript that is uploaded by the authors to a public server before formal peer review and publication in a journal. Preprints enable rapid dissemination of research findings, allow authors to receive early feedback, and establish priority for discoveries.

• Aims & Scope: Core Reports accepts preprints across medicine, neuroscience, and psychology. We welcome submissions that present original research, systematic reviews, case reports, and other scholarly contributions relevant to these fields.
• Open Access Philosophy: In line with our Open Access Policy, all preprints on Core Reports are freely and immediately available online. Authors retain copyright, and there are no fees for submission, posting, or access.

2. Types of Submissions Accepted

Core Reports accepts manuscripts for posting as preprints in the following categories. Authors should ensure their submission aligns with the platform's aims and scope.

• Original Research: Full-length reports of primary scientific investigations.
• Letter: Short communications, often providing initial findings or commentary.
• Case Report: Detailed reports of specific patient cases or unique observations.
• Meta-Analysis: Systematic statistical combination of data from multiple studies.
• Systematic Review: Comprehensive review of existing literature on a specific question.
• Literature Review: Broad overview and synthesis of existing research in a field.
• Research Protocol: Detailed plans for future research studies, often for clinical trials.
• Hypothetical Notes: Manuscripts presenting theoretical frameworks or novel hypotheses for discussion.
• Meeting Proceedings: Summaries or full papers presented at scientific meetings.
• Theses and Dissertations: Comprehensive academic works submitted as part of degree requirements (if applicable to your platform's scope).
• Newsletter: articles featuring a review, commentary or an opinion on a currently published paper or book; articles featuring a report on outreach activities or scientific events; obituaries of a prominent scholar; renowned scholar’s success stories or interviews
• 3. Submission Process

All manuscripts must be submitted via the Core Reports' online system. Core Reports utilizes the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) Open Journal/Preprint Systems (OJS/OPS) for its submission and management processes.

• Submission Link: Access the submission portal https://corereports.neuroscience.mn.
• Account Registration: New users must first register for an account. The registration page is accessible via this https://corereports.neuroscience.mn.
• Initial Screening: Upon submission, manuscripts undergo a basic internal screening process by Core Reports staff to ensure compliance with these guidelines, ethical standards, and the platform's scope. This is not peer review. Non-compliant manuscripts will be returned to authors for correction before being posted.

4. Content Requirements & Ethical Guidelines

4.1. Originality and Prior Publication

• Manuscripts submitted to Core Reports must be original research and must not be currently under consideration by another journal.
• Content presented within the manuscript must not have been previously published as a peer-reviewed article in a journal or as a book chapter.
• Re-analysis of Published Data: If your manuscript involves a re-analysis of previously published datasets, the original source(s) must be clearly cited or acknowledged. Authors are responsible for obtaining any necessary licenses or permissions from the copyright holder of the original data, if required.

4.2. Studies Involving Human and Animal Subjects

• Human Subjects: All manuscripts reporting observations made on human subjects must adhere to the principles stated in the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki (accessible HERE). Ethical approval from a relevant institutional review board (IRB) or ethics committee, along with the approval number, must be explicitly stated within the manuscript.
• Animal Subjects: All studies involving animal subjects must be approved by an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) or equivalent body, in accordance with national and institutional guidelines (e.g., guidelines from the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, accessible HERE). The ethical approval number and institution must be provided in the manuscript.
• Platform Rights: Core Reports reserves the right to request and review all relevant documentation (e.g., ethical approval letters, consent forms) to clarify compliance with ethical standards.

4.3. Data Availability and Public Repositories

Core Reports strongly advocates for the principles of FAIR data (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). Authors are strongly encouraged to make their underlying research data openly available whenever ethically and legally permissible.

• Mandatory Deposition for Specific Data: All novel or new research datasets related to DNA/RNA/protein sequences must be submitted to relevant public repositories (e.g., National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).
• Gene Expression Data: Gene expression datasets (e.g., RNA-seq, microarray) should be deposited in relevant public domains such as Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/ or equivalent repositories.
• Supplementary Information (Last Resort): In cases where no relevant or appropriate public repository is available, these datasets may be submitted as supplementary information to Core Reports, provided they are not excessively large. Authors are encouraged to consider discipline-specific or generalist repositories like Dryad, Figshare, or Zenodo.
• Referencing Data: All reference IDs for gene or DNA/RNA/protein sequences, gene expression datasets, vector sequences, and other relevant datasets must be provided within the main text of the manuscript. Authors must make every effort to use official symbols or IDs for any well-reported resources cited.
• Data Availability Statement: Authors must include a "Data Availability Statement" in their manuscript, specifying where and how the data supporting the findings can be accessed, or stating why data cannot be made public.

4.4. Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest

Editors, authors, and reviewers must adhere to the recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical journals stated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which is accessible at http://icmje.acponline.org/.

• The corresponding author (or submitting author), managing editor, and reviewers must declare any potential conflicts of interest related to the work reported in the submitted manuscript.
• A declaration statement must be provided towards the end of the manuscript (e.g., "The authors declare no conflict of interest." or specific declarations).
• The corresponding/submitting author is responsible for accurately declaring conflicts of interest for all authors.

4.5. AI Use Disclosure

• Any use of Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) tools or Large Language Models (LLMs) in the creation of the manuscript (e.g., for drafting sections, generating figures, data analysis) must be transparently disclosed in the methods section.
• Authors acknowledge that AI tools or LLMs do not qualify for authorship. Authors are fully responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of their work, including any content generated by AI tools.

4.6. Authorship and Contributions

• All individuals named as authors must meet the criteria for authorship (e.g., as defined by ICMJE guidelines).
• For articles with multiple authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided (e.g., using CRediT taxonomy).

4.7. Acknowledgements

• This section should include recognition of individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet authorship criteria.
• All sources of funding that supported the research work, including any costs to contribute towards the open access posting on Core Reports, must be clearly stated. Grant numbers should be included where applicable.

5. Licensing and Rights

This section incorporates and clarifies the information from our Copyright Notice regarding your rights as an author and how your work will be made openly available.

5.1. Author Copyright Retention: Authors retain the copyright to their submitted work.

5.2. License Grant to Core Reports: By submitting your manuscript, you grant Core Reports a non-exclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free license to host, display, distribute, and archive your manuscript on our Platform in perpetuity.

5.3. Public Licensing via Creative Commons: All preprints posted on the Core Reports platform are made publicly available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. This license permits others to: * Share: Copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. * Adapt: Remix, transform, and build upon the material. * Conditions: Attribution (credit must be given to the original creator(s)), and Non-Commercial (the material may not be used for commercial purposes). * Irrevocability: The CC BY-NC 4.0 license applied to your preprint is irrevocable once it is posted. Please be aware that the "Non-Commercial" clause of this license may limit the re-use of your work by commercial entities or for commercial purposes.

5.4. Author Scholarly Usage Rights: As the copyright holder and consistent with the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, authors retain broad scholarly usage rights for their own article. This includes, but is not limited to, the right to: * Use the article in their thesis or dissertation for non-commercial purposes. * Share the final submitted or accepted manuscript version on personal or institutional websites/repositories. * Utilize figures, tables, and text from their article in future non-commercial works, presentations, or teaching materials.

5.5. Permanence and Withdrawal: Preprints are considered part of the permanent scholarly record and are assigned a DOI. While authors can submit revised versions (which retain the same DOI), the original version will also remain accessible. Requests for complete withdrawal (i.e., removal of the content) are granted only in rare, exceptional circumstances (e.g., confirmed fundamental errors, ethical concerns). In most withdrawal cases, the preprint will be marked as 'Withdrawn' with an explanation, but its metadata and a record of its existence will remain as part of the permanent scholarly record.

5.6. Text and Data Mining: By posting on Core Reports, authors explicitly consent to text and data mining of their work by search engines, researchers, and other parties, consistent with the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.

6. Technical & Manuscript Preparation Guidelines

6.1. Language & Proofreading

• All manuscripts must be written in either Standard UK English or Standard American English, but not a mixture of both.
• Authors are responsible for ensuring that the quality of the written English is acceptable, clear, concise, and free from grammatical errors.
• Although Core Reports performs basic quality checks before posting, the corresponding author (submitting author) assumes full responsibility for the content, language, and final presentation of the manuscript as it appears on the Platform. We recommend seeking professional English language editing services if needed.

6.2. Formatting & Templates

• Core Reports prioritizes rapid dissemination. Therefore, we generally accept manuscripts prepared using any consistent formatting style, provided they are submitted as a single, readable Microsoft Word file. We do not reformat or typeset manuscripts for display on the preprint server; the Microsoft Word file you submit will be the version displayed.
• For optimal readability and to facilitate potential future submission to a peer-reviewed journal, we recommend that authors adhere to clear, standard academic formatting practices (e.g., clear headings, legible fonts, appropriate line spacing).
• While we do not provide specific templates, ensuring your manuscript is well-organized will benefit readers and potential reviewers.

6.3. Required Sections for All Submissions

The following sections must be clearly identifiable and appended to the end of your article type (or as indicated):

• Abstract: A concise summary of your work (typically 150-250 words, depending on article type).
• Authors’ Names and Affiliation(s): The first and last name of each author must be provided, along with their respective institutional affiliations (superscripted after the last name and defined after the author list). The corresponding author should be clearly indicated.
• Keywords: Provide three to five pertinent keywords specific to your article, yet reasonably common within your subject discipline.
• Supplementary Materials: Any additional figures, tables, datasets, videos, or other data in any format intended to supplement the main manuscript must be provided as separate files and clearly referenced within the main text. These will be linked from the preprint page.
• Acknowledgements: Include any individuals or entities that provided support but do not meet authorship criteria. This section must also list all grants received in support of your research work, including any costs incurred towards the open access posting on Core Reports.
• Author Contributions: For articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided (e.g., using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) system where appropriate).
• Conflicts of Interest: Please refer to the explanation in Section 4.4 ("Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest") or explicitly state "The authors declare no conflict of interest."
• AI Use Disclosure: As per Section 4.5, a clear statement regarding the use of AIGC tools or LLMs.
• References: Please refer to the "References" section below.

6.4. References

• Please use the American Psychological Association (APA) 7th Edition reference style for in-text citations and bibliography formatting.
• You may refer to the APA 7th Edition quick reference guide here: https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/reference-guide.pdf.
• The APA 7th Edition style is widely available in most reference management software such as EndNote, Zotero, RefWorks, and Mendeley.

6.5. Figures

• All figures must be prepared in a dimension not exceeding 17cm x 25cm.
• Ensure a resolution of 300dpi for color figures and 600dpi for halftone/grayscale figures/mixed mode.
• All figures must be provided as separate files (e.g., JPEG, TIFF, PNG) and also embedded within the main manuscript (preferably towards the end, after the references, or within the text where appropriate).

6.6. Tables

• Tables must be prepared within the manuscript using your word processor's table feature (e.g., Microsoft Word’s table feature).
• Tables should be provided towards the end of the manuscript, after figures and before supplementary materials.

7. Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism, defined as the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit, is strictly prohibited.

• All submitted manuscripts will be screened for text similarity using Grammarly Plagiarism Checker or equivalent tools.
• Manuscripts with a significant amount of similarity to published or publicly available materials, or clear evidence of plagiarism, will be declined by the editor from further stages of evaluation.
• In cases where plagiarized content is identified after a manuscript has been posted on the platform, Core Reports reserves the right to retract the published material, accompanied by an official statement either from the platform or the author(s).

8. Appeals and Complaints

Authors who wish to appeal an editorial decision or have a complaint regarding the submission or posting process should contact the Core Reports editorial office directly at secretariat@neuroscience.mn. All appeals and complaints will be handled in accordance with our internal policies.

9. Contact Information

If you have any questions or require further assistance with these Author Guidelines, please contact us:

Core Reports | secretariat@neuroscience.mn