Neurosurgical Advances is committed to maintaining the highest standards of integrity in the publication of scholarly works. All parties involved in the publication process—authors, reviewers, and editors—must adhere to the ethical guidelines outlined below.

Author Responsibilities

• Originality: Authors must ensure that their work is original and has not been previously published or concurrently submitted to another journal for consideration.
• Acknowledgment of Sources: Proper citation of sources and acknowledgment of any work or data from other authors must be done in the manuscript.
• Accuracy: Authors are responsible for the accuracy of data presented in their manuscript. Any significant errors discovered post-publication must be promptly reported to the editorial board.
• Authorship: All listed authors must have made a significant contribution to the research and the writing of the manuscript. Others who contributed but do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged.
• Transparency: Authors must disclose all sources of financial support for the research and the role of any sponsors in study design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation.

Reviewer Responsibilities

• Confidentiality: Reviewers must treat manuscripts as confidential documents. They must not share or discuss the manuscript with others, except with the editor's permission.
• Objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively, and feedback should be provided in a constructive manner. Reviewers should avoid personal criticism of the authors.
• Conflict of Interest: Reviewers must disclose any conflicts of interest that could potentially affect their objectivity and must recuse themselves from the review process if necessary.
• Timeliness: Reviewers must submit their evaluations within the agreed timeframe to ensure the timely processing of manuscripts.

Editor Responsibilities

• Fair Play: Editors will evaluate manuscripts based on their scholarly merit, without discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin, or political views.
• Confidentiality: Editors must ensure the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and must not use any of the data for personal advantage.
• Decision-Making: Editors are responsible for making decisions on manuscript acceptance or rejection based on peer reviewers' evaluations and the manuscript's relevance to the journal's scope.
• Conflict of Interest: Editors must disclose any conflicts of interest related to manuscripts under consideration and must recuse themselves from editorial decisions where such conflicts exist.

Conflicts of Interest

All authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose any financial or non-financial conflicts of interest that might influence the results or interpretation of their work. Such conflicts can include but are not limited to financial relationships with industry sponsors, advisory roles, stock ownership, or personal relationships with the research team. Failure to disclose conflicts of interest may result in the rejection of the manuscript or retraction of the published article.

Ethical Approval

For all research involving human subjects, authors must obtain prior ethical approval from an appropriate ethics committee or institutional review board (IRB). The approval must be clearly stated in the manuscript, including the name of the approving institution and the ethics approval number. Additionally, authors must ensure that all clinical trials have been registered in a publicly accessible database before patient enrollment. For research involving animals, authors must ensure that the study complies with institutional, national, or international guidelines for the care and use of animals.

Reproducing Published Material from Other Publishers

Authors must obtain permission to reproduce material that has already been published elsewhere. This includes figures, tables, text, and data. The source of reproduced material must be clearly cited, and a statement confirming the permission to reproduce such material must be included in the manuscript. Authors are responsible for ensuring that they adhere to the licensing agreements and copyright policies of the original publisher.

Publication Misconduct

Neurosurgical Advances follows a strict policy against publication misconduct, including but not limited to plagiarism, data fabrication, data falsification, duplicate publication, and improper attribution of authorship. All submitted manuscripts will be checked for plagiarism using appropriate software. In cases of suspected misconduct, the journal will follow the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines and may conduct an investigation. If misconduct is confirmed, the following actions may be taken:

• Retraction of the article
• Public notification of the misconduct
• Notification to the author's institution
• Banning the authors from future submissions to the journal

The journal reserves the right to notify relevant authorities if misconduct is detected. Authors found guilty of misconduct may also face legal consequences, depending on the severity of the infraction.