Please note that articles submitted to the journal are required to pay an Article Publishing Charge (APC) of $2000/EUR2000 on acceptance, unless a waiver has been granted. All papers will be published under an open access license. More information on this APC can be found here.
Before submitting please make sure that your article fits into the Aims and Scope: The primary focus of any submitted work should always be on Parkinson's disease or atypical parkinsonism. Research studies that focus on more heterogeneous populations, and where Parkinson's disease or parkinsonism is included merely as one of various conditions, and that do not have an explicit focus on issues related specifically to Parkinson's disease, will not be considered for publication.
SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS: AUTHOR INSTRUCTIONS
Please follow the directions of the peer review submission system. You can submit your files (document, figures, supplementary files) separately in the system, and the system will generate a final pdf for your approval. Resubmissions should include the author's replies to the reviewer comments in the revised manuscript itself (at the top) and should clearly show the changes throughout the document, for instance, by highlighting the changed text. The revised paper should always be a Word document.
Submission of an article is understood to imply that the article is original and unpublished and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. If your article has been published as a pre-print, it would be helpful to the Editor if you mention this in the cover letter. Any possible conflict of interest, financial or otherwise, related to the submitted work must be clearly indicated in the manuscript. Procedures involving experiments on human subjects should be in accord with the ethical standards of the Committee on Human Experimentation of the institution in which the experiments were done or in accord with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975. Procedures involving experimentation on animal subjects should be in accord with either the guide of the institution in which the experiments were done, or with the National Research Council’s guide for the care and use of laboratory animals.
If the address to which proofs should be sent is different from the correspondence address, authors are kindly requested to indicate this. Both the editor and the publisher should be informed of any changes in either or both of these addresses. Please also supply a direct telephone number if available.
PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS
Research Reports
Organization and style of presentation
Manuscripts must be written in US English. Authors whose native language is not English are recommended to seek the advice of a native English speaker or English language service before submitting their manuscripts..
Word count: There are no specific limits, but the Editors-in-Chief ask that all articles are as concise and succinct as possible. As a broad guideline, research articles are usually between 2000-4000 words.
Abbreviations: Authors should strive to minimize the use of abbreviations. Policy is to use no more than 5 abbreviations in your manuscript; preference is for authors to write most terms fully. This will improve the readability of papers.
Manuscripts should be double spaced throughout with wide margins (2.5cm or 1in), including the abstract and references. Every page of the manuscript, including the title page, references, tables, etc., should include a page number centered at the bottom.
Manuscripts should be organized in the following order with headings and subheadings typed on a separate line, without indentation.
Title Page
- Title (should be clear, descriptive and concise).
- Full name(s) of author(s).
- Full affiliation(s). Delineate affiliations with lowercase letters.
- Present address of author(s), if different from affiliation.
- Running title (45 characters or less, including spaces).
- Complete correspondence address, including telephone number and e-mail address.
Leave the author information blank if double-blind peer review is wished for, but do include the information in the submission letter to the editor.
Changes in Authorship
When submitting the manuscript the author listing and order should be final. If any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list does need to be made after submission, this can be done only before acceptance and with the Editor’s approval. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (1) the reason for the change in author list and (2) written confirmation from all authors, including the affected author, that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement.
Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in an Erratum.
Please read the IOS Press authorship policy here for further information.
Abstract and Keywords
The abstract for research papers should follow the “structured abstract” format:
BACKGROUND:
OBJECTIVE:
METHODS:
RESULTS:
CONCLUSIONS:
The abstract should try to be no longer than 250 words.
For other papers such as Reviews, the abstract should be clear, descriptive, and self-explanatory, and no longer than 250 words.
Include a list of 4-10 keywords. These keywords should be terms from the MeSH database.
Plain Language Summary
As of March 25, 2024, Inclusion of a Plain Language Summary is required for all submissions with an abstract. Visually it looks like a second abstract below the regular abstract, and it will be visible on indexers’ sites such as Pubmed below the regular abstract. It should be no longer than 250 words. It should prode a clear summary of the article using non-technical language, making it accessible to a wider network of readers. It is required that the Plain Language Summary is written according to the instructions given on the dedicated instruction page, and the author should have the text reviewed by a Person with Parkinson’s before submission. The instructions on how to write or review a Plain Language Summary, including examples, can be found here: https://www.journalofparkinsonsdisease.com/plain-language-summaries
Introduction
Materials and Methods
There is no word limit to the materials and methods section, as the journal’s policy is that methodological rigour and reproducibility is of great importance.
Results
Discussion
Acknowledgments
Include individuals or companies which have assisted with your study, including advisors, administrative support and suppliers who may have donated or given materials used in the study. If there are no acknowledgments, then do still include this section and insert: “The authors have no acknowledgments to report.”
Funding
Include all funding sources for the study. If there is no funding involved, then do still include this section and insert: “The authors have no funding to report.”
Conflict of Interest
All affiliations or financial involvement (e.g., employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants, patents received or pending, royalties) with any organization or entity with a financial interest in, or in financial competition with, the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript must be completely disclosed in the submitted manuscript.
If there is no conflict of interest to declare, do still include this section and insert "The authors have no conflict of interest to report". If an author is also on the Editorial Board of this journal, the following statement should be included in this section: “
Datasets/Data Availability Statement (Required for Research Reports, Short Communications, and Systematic Reviews/Meta-Analyses)
All datasets and data articles cited in your manuscript should be included in the reference list of your article (not in a separate box or in the article text). Data references should include: author name(s), dataset title, data repository, version (where available), year, and identifier (DOI/URL/etc.).
Authors should include a Data Availability statement at the end of the manuscript (before the References) to describe the availability or the absence of shared data. Authors are required to deposit sequence or proteomic data into a public repository (eg. GEO, Chorus) and include a link to the repository and data, and encouraged to publicly archive their research data including, but not limited to: software, algorithms, protocols, methods, and/or materials. Exceptions are made if sharing data compromises ethical standards or legal requirements.
Examples for your paper’s “Data Availability" statement:
1. The data supporting the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name] at [DOI and/or URL]. These data were derived from the following resources available in the public domain: [list resources and URLs].
2. The data supporting the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.
3. The data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and/or its supplementary material.
4. Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during this study.
Artificial Intelligence Policy
Artificial intelligence (such as language models, machine learning systems, or similar technologies) cannot be authors of a manuscript. If these models or tools are used to produce content or aid in writing and manuscript preparation, the authors of the manuscript bear the responsibility for the quality and ethical standards of the generated content. Authors must acknowledge the utilization of these tools/technologies in the Methods section if integrated into formal research design or methods or if used for literature searches. If these tools/technologies are used to modify text written by the authors, this should be included in the Acknowledgment section. Authors must include details such as a description of the content created or modified, the name of the language model or tool, its version, extension numbers, and the manufacturer. Examples: "Approximately 15% of the text in this manuscript was generated with the assistance of ChatGPT, version [version number], a language model developed by OpenAI (https://www.openai.com)." or "ChatGPT, version [version number], a language model developed by OpenAI (https://www.openai.com), was used for language refinement of this manuscript.
References
- Click here to download the EndNote reference style file for JPD articles. A .csl file (for our sister journal with an identical reference style) is available here.
- Place citations as numbers in square brackets in the text. All publications cited in the text should be presented in a list of references following the text of the manuscript. Only articles published or accepted for publication should be listed in the reference list. Submitted articles can be listed in the text as (Author(s), unpublished data).
- All authors should be listed in the reference list.
- References should be listed in the order of appearance in the following style:
[1] Alzheimer Research Forum, Drugs in Clinical Trials: AAB-001, http://www.alzforum.org/drg/drc/detail.asp?id=101, Last updated May 29, 2007, Accessed on January 29, 2008.
[2] Zetterberg H, Blennow K (2018) From cerebrospinal fluid to blood: the third wave of fluid biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease. In Alzheimer’s Disease: New Beginnings, Perry G, Avila J, Moreira PI, Sorensen AA, Tabaton M, eds. IOS Press, Amsterdam, pp. 269-277.
[3] Owen CL, Ibrahim K, Dennison L, Roberts, HC (2019) Falls self-management interventions for people with Parkinson’s disease: a systematic review. J Parkinsons Dis 9, 283-299.
[4] Langston JW, Palfreman J (2014) The Case of the Frozen Addicts. IOS Press, Amsterdam.
[5] Palfreman J (2017) Toward Personalized Medicine for Those with Parkinson’s, Jon Palfreman’s Blog, https://www.journalofparkinsonsdisease.com/blog/palfreman/toward-personalized-medicine-those-parkinson’s, Posted May 1, 2017, Accessed January 29, 2018.
Tables
Number according to their sequence in the text. The text should include references to all tables.
Provide each table on a separate page of the manuscript after the references.
Include a brief and self-explanatory title with any explanations essential to the understanding of the table given in footnotes at the bottom of the table.
Vertical lines should not be used to separate columns. Leave some extra space between the columns instead.
Figures
Number the figures according to their sequence in the text. The text should include references to all figures.
For the file formats of the figures please take the following into account:
- Line art should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi, save as EPS or TIFF.
- Do not use faint lines and/or lettering and check that all lines and lettering within the figures are legible at final size.
- All lines should be at least 0.1 mm (0.3 pt) wide.
- Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files. - Grayscales (incl photos) should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi, or 600 dpi for combination art (lettering and images); save as TIFF.
- Do not save figures as JPEG, this format may lose information in the process
- Do not use figures taken from the Internet, the resolution will be too low for printing
- Do not use color in your figures if they are to be printed in black & white, as this will reduce the print quality (note that in software often the default is color, you should change the settings)
- For figures that should be printed in color, please send a CMYK encoded EPS or TIFF
Figures should be designed with the format of JPD in mind and preferable sized as they will appear when printed. A single column of the journal is 77mm and two columns are 165mm.
Figures should be cropped to include the figure only (no blank space).
On figures where a scale is needed, use bar scales to avoid problems if the figure needs to be reduced.
Each illustration should have a brief self-explanatory legend that should be typed separately from the figure in the section of the manuscript following the tables.
Costs for color figures in the print version of the journal are as follows: 1 figure - 650 euro; 2 figures - 900 euro; 3 figures - 1050 euro; 4 figures - 1200 euro; 5 figures - 1350 euro. Cost for each additional color figure will be 150 euro. Color figures are free in the electronic version of the journal. You may opt to send in both black/white figures for print, and color figures for the online PDF (please adjust the figure legend appropriately).
Image integrity
Images submitted with a manuscript for review should be minimally processed. No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. The grouping or consolidation of images from multiple sources must be made explicit by the arrangement of the figure and in the figure legend. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if they are applied to the whole image and if they do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent any information present in the original, including backgrounds.
Unprocessed data files may be requested to help in manuscript evaluation during the peer review process or may be needed to respond to post-publication issues that may arise with published papers. Unprocessed data and metadata files should be retained, ideally forever.
Unprocessed original images of gels and western blots must be included with submissions as Supplementary Material for reviewers to examine (not for publication). This must include the full blots, not cropped sections, with target proteins, loading controls, molecular weights, and experimental conditions clearly indicated.
Supplementary Data
Supplementary data can be submitted with the manuscript, included within the manuscript after the Figures and Tables (or otherwise after the References). Each supplementary item should have a legend and should not exceed the file size of 10MB. Supplemental videos can be submitted separately (see top of page for submission guidelines of videos). A short description of the supplementary items should be included under the header of “Supplementary Material” within the manuscript before the “References”. Large datasets should be hosted on the author’s own or institute’s website or in an appropriate database, and should be properly cited within the manuscript.
Reviews
Reviews should be authoritative and topical and provide comprehensive and balanced coverage of a timely and/or controversial issue. Reviews should be prepared as detailed above for a Research Report omitting Introduction through Discussion, and include a Conclusion. When submitting a Review, clearly signify the article as such in the submission title by using: "REVIEW: full article title". There is no word count limit, but the Editors-in-Chief ask to keep the manuscript to the point and non-repetitive.
Short Communications
A short communication is an article of original scholarship of unusual interest of less than 1500 words (not including references). An abstract of 100 words or less should be included with no subdivision of text into sections. References should be formatted as above. A total of two tables and/or figures are allowed.
Case reports
The Journal of Parkinson's Disease infrequently publishes clinical descriptions of a single case or a very small case series. These case reports should describe a new or unexpected clinical observation that may have implications for daily clinical care, or that could inspire further research. Submissions for this category should include a brief introduction, a detailed description of the clinical case, followed by a succinct summary of the implications for either daily clinical care or for further research. We welcome the inclusion of videos that illustrate the clinical phenomenon that is being described, if applicable. Case reports should not exceed a maximum of 1500 words.
Global Parkinson’s Disease Articles
This section is edited by Associate Editor Roongroj Bhidayasiri. This section aims to highlight the diverse challenges and unique features of PD in different geographical regions. We welcome original research in clinical medicine, translational research, and basic science from all members of the PD healthcare and research communities for this new section. The goal is to share effective solutions and celebrate successful strategies or efforts being made to overcome the challenges being faced in countries and regions around the world. This may include the pathophysiology of PD, impact of environmental factors, access to and availability of treatments, and use of new technologies to improve care provision. Articles should follow the format of a research article or short communication.
Editorial: Tackling Parkinson’s Disease as a Global Challenge
Replication Studies
Authors who are interested in submitting a replication study should first send a short presubmission enquiry to the editors-in-chief indicating which experiment(s) they are attempting to replicate. Only those authors who receive a positive response to their presubmission enquiry should proceed to submitting their full manuscript. Replication studies should present previously unpublished results from experiments that attempt to replicate previously published high-impact publications within the Parkinson’s disease field. These studies should present data resulting from direct replications or very close conceptual replications of one or more key experiments from other laboratories. They must have been performed by a group or groups independent of those that published the original study. Replication studies should have appropriate controls, sufficient statistical power, and adequate characterization of reagents, biosamples, and laboratory models. Whether the results are negative or positive, the authors should attempt to clarify any points of contention around original findings and/or provide reasonable explanations for deviations from the original findings.
When submitting, select the article type “Replication Study”. The publishing charge for Replication Studies is waived.
"How I Examine My Patient" Articles
The section “How I Examine My Patient" hosts short and clinical summaries of the application and results of standard diagnostic tests and therapies. These articles could concern history taking, physical examination or ancillary tests and the description should be concrete, for use in everyday clinical practice.
Articles should be a maximum of 750 words with a maximum of 8 references in the following format:
- Introduction of the clinical dilemma (5-10 sentences)
- Short description of the test or therapy (can be accompanied by a table, figure or supplemental film)
- Discussion (results in own practice)
- Conclusions
One illustrative figure or video, and a summary table may be included.
"Advice to People with Parkinson's in My Clinic" Articles
For this specific section of the journal, we are seeking submissions around clinically relevant questions that commonly arise in daily clinical practice, but for which there is at this point insufficient scientific evidence to make a definitive recommendation. The paper should always have the following structure for the title: "Advice to people with Parkinson's in my clinic: Exercise" or "Advice to people with Parkinson's in my clinic: Cannabis" (exercise and cannabis were just recent examples here).
For the structure of the text itself, we allow fair degree of flexibility, although we recommend that you start by describing why the clinical question that you discuss is actually a commonly occurring problem in clinical practice, and then focus on discussing whatever evidence is available, but also highlighting the lack thereof. Importantly, each paper should end with a dedicated section with the header "What we tell people with Parkinson's in our clinic?"
The typical word count for such a paper would be around 1500 words, although we are open to considering a motivated expansion to a longer paper.
“Hidden Gems" from The Literature of Parkinsonism
The goal of articles in this section is to provide the current generation of readers with significant clinical observations that were published years ago and might be neglected in current reviews or textbooks. Articles should provide an overview of up to 1,000 words, and can add up-to-date insights. They can focus on a single paper, or cite more than one “hidden gem” dealing with the same disorder. This section is by invitation only. If you wish to write for this section, then please first discuss your idea with the Associate Editor for "Hidden Gems": Peter LeWitt.
Opinion/Position Papers
Opinion or Position Papers provide readers with a snapshot update of a highly topical subject in which the author shares their perspective and thoughts on advances and critical issues in the field and speculates on potential outcomes and future developments. These articles are not intended to provide a comprehensive review of a subject area, rather the intention is to help foster debate and discussion around key areas of Parkinson’s disease research and therapy. Position Papers present an arguable opinion about an issue and can be supported by reasonable preponderance of empirical evidence. Guidelines:
• Opinion papers should have a maximum of 1000 words (excluding the abstract and references) and Position papers a word count between 2000-4000 words. Both should have an abstract (max 250 words) and 3–5 key words
• Up to 4 figures or tables and 10 references may be included
• To include more words, figures, tables, and references, please get approval of one of the Editors-in-Chief or Associate Editors
• The format of the Title Page, Authorship, Abstract, Keywords, Figures, Tables, References, and Disclosures should follow that for Research Reports
• These article types must pay the required Article Processing Charges for open access unless they were invited.
Hypotheses
A hypothesis article should be a balanced and insightful consideration of a topic with novel hypotheses well presented and supported. The article should be prepared as a Research Report but without Methods or Results sections.
Book Reviews
Book reviews should be 750 words or less and without sections. Suggestions can be proposed to the Editors-in-Chief.
Letters to the Editor
These are short letters to JPD that are either: A) Relating to a specific issue/case history. Authors can submit a Letter to the Editor of 1000 words or less for possible inclusion. The Letter should include an abstract (100 words max) but no other subdivisions, and should not include more than 15 references and one figure or table. B) Comments of 1000 words or less concerning prior articles published in JPD or elsewhere. Letters should have a title, include appropriate references, and include the corresponding author's e-mail address. Letters can be edited, sometimes extensively, to sharpen their focus. They will be accepted, or may be sent for peer review, at the discretion of the Editors. The author of the original paper will be offered to write a response.
Commentaries
Commentaries can be around 1000 words with an abstract and no other subdivisions.
REMEMBER TO INCLUDE
In cover letter
Name, postal address, phone number and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
Name of an Associate Editor with expertise in the area of the study (if no Associate Editor is suitable, the Editorial Office will handle the submission).
Statement that all authors have contributed to the work, agree with the presented findings, and that the work has not been published before nor is being considered for publication in another journal.
A list of at least 4-6 potential reviewers knowledgeable in the area of the study and potential reviewer conflicts.
Statement that procedures involving experiments on human subjects are done in accord with the ethical standards of the Committee on Human Experimentation of the institution in which the experiments were done or in accord with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975.
Statement that procedures involving experimentation on animal subjects are done in accord with either the guide of the institution in which the experiments were done, or with the National Research Council's guide for the care and use of laboratory animals.
All affiliations with or financial involvement (e.g., employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, royalties) with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or in financial competition with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript are completely disclosed in the letter of submission.
In manuscript
Compliance with guidelines on human experimentation as well as protocol approval by a local Institutional Review Board should be specified.
Compliance with guidelines of animal experimentation as well as protocol approval by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee should be specified.
Statement of all financial and material support for this research and any potential conflicts should also be clearly identified in the Acknowledgment and Conflict of Interest sections. If there is no Conflict-of-Interest then still add this statement.
All financial and material support for this research and work are clearly identified in the manuscript including listing of support specified in the letter of submission that might constitute or give the appearance of influencing the findings, based on the judgment of the Editor-in-Chief in consultation with the Associate Editor handling the review of the manuscript.
Resubmissions
Resubmissions should include the manuscript number and a reference that the paper is a revision. The point-by-point response to the previous reviews should be included at the top of the manuscript. It would be helpful to the reviewer to submit a tracked version of your paper, so the changes can be quickly found in the document.
KUDOS
Authors of published articles (non-prepress, final articles) will be contacted by Kudos. Kudos is a service that helps researchers maximize the impact and visibility of their research. It allows authors to enrich their articles with lay metadata, add links to related materials and promote their articles through the Kudos system to a wider public. Authors will receive no more than three emails: one invitation and a maximum of two reminders to register for the service and link the published article to their profile. Using and registering for Kudos remains entirely optional. For more information, please have a look at our authors section.
