Journal of Sleep And Sleep Disorder Research · Aims and scope
Aims and Scope
What the journal sets out to publish, the subjects and forms of work it covers, and how to tell whether a manuscript belongs here.
01 · Aims
What the journal sets out to do
The Journal of Sleep And Sleep Disorder Research publishes peer-reviewed research on sleep as a biological state, on the circadian systems that time it, on the disorders that interrupt it, and on the methods by which all three are measured.
Its aim is to hold that whole range in one place. Sleep is studied in laboratories and in clinics, in cohorts and in sleep centers, by neuroscientists, physicians, dentists, psychologists, engineers and public-health researchers, and the findings of each group bear directly on the others. A journal that keeps mechanism, measurement and clinical consequence in the same volume lets those readers meet, which is the condition under which sleep research advances fastest.
The journal therefore applies one editorial standard across that range, publishes in open access so the work reaches everyone who needs it, and registers every article with Crossref so it stays citable.
02 · Subject coverage
The subjects the journal covers
Eight areas, which together cover sleep as a process and sleep disorders as clinical problems, with the measurement and services that connect the two.
- 01 Sleep physiology and circadian science Sleep regulation, homeostatic and circadian control, chronobiology, chronotype, and entrainment in humans and in model systems.
- 02 Sleep-disordered breathing Obstructive and central sleep apnea, hypoventilation syndromes, positive-airway-pressure and alternative therapies, and cardiometabolic consequences.
- 03 Insomnia and behavioral sleep medicine Insomnia disorder, cognitive and behavioral treatment, sleep-related cognition, bedtime behavior, and adherence.
- 04 Central disorders of hypersomnolence Narcolepsy, idiopathic hypersomnia, Kleine–Levin syndrome, and the assessment of daytime sleepiness.
- 05 Parasomnias and sleep-related movement disorders Non-REM and REM parasomnias, restless legs syndrome, periodic limb movements, and bruxism.
- 06 Sleep across the lifespan Infant, child and adolescent sleep, sleep in pregnancy, and sleep in later life, including neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative contexts.
- 07 Sleep in comorbid disease Sleep in psychiatric, neurological, respiratory, cardiometabolic, oncological and pain conditions, and in perioperative and critical care.
- 08 Measurement, methods and services Polysomnography, actigraphy, quantitative EEG, consumer and ambulatory sleep technology, questionnaires and scoring, population sleep health, occupational and shift-work sleep, dental sleep medicine, and health-services research.
The journal’s purpose and editorial organization are described on the about page.
03 · Forms of work
The kinds of study the journal publishes
Subject coverage is one axis of fit; the way a question is approached is the other. Each of the following stands on its own within the subject areas above.
- Laboratory and model-system research, including work in non-human species
- Human experimental and physiological studies
- Observational, cohort and epidemiological studies
- Clinical studies, from single-center series to multi-center trials
- Measurement, instrumentation and methods research
- Analytical, computational and signal-processing work
- Behavioral, cognitive and psychological studies
- Occupational, public-health and health-services research
- Secondary analyses and evidence synthesis
Two things worth saying plainly
Established methods and applied questions are fully in scope. A study qualifies on the question it asks and the clarity with which it reports its methods, so work that applies a settled technique to a new population, setting or condition is as welcome as work that develops a new one.
Research on sleep and circadian biology is in scope on its own terms, whatever its distance from clinical application. Mechanistic and basic work belongs here because understanding how sleep is produced and timed is part of the journal’s subject, and it is judged as such.
04 · Deciding fit
How to tell whether a manuscript belongs here
One test settles it: sleep, a sleep disorder or a circadian question is among the things the study actually investigates.
That connection can take any of several forms. Sleep may be the outcome the study measures, the exposure whose effect it estimates, the mechanism it explains, the thing its method is built to record, or the service whose delivery it evaluates. Any one of those is enough, and a manuscript needs only one.
Work in which sleep appears as a passing mention, as a single item inside an unrelated battery, or as background framing for a question about something else is better served by a general medical, psychological or engineering journal, where it will reach the readers it is written for.
Scope and assessment are separate questions
Scope decides whether a manuscript belongs in this journal. Scholarly assessment then decides whether it is ready to publish, and the two are considered in that order. Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.
Manuscripts that pass initial editorial screening proceed to independent peer review. Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. The requirements a manuscript is assessed against are set out in the editorial policies and the instructions for authors.
05 · Article types
The categories a manuscript is submitted under
Four categories carry the journal’s research content. Choose the one that matches the manuscript; the editorial office will advise if another suits it better.
- Original research
- A full report of new work: laboratory, experimental, observational, clinical, methodological or computational.
- Review
- Narrative reviews, systematic reviews and meta-analyses that assemble and appraise an existing body of evidence.
- Methods and tools
- Recording, scoring, analysis and instrumentation work presented so that others can apply or reproduce it.
- Short communication
- A concise report of a self-contained finding, a focused dataset, or a methodological observation.
Word, abstract, keyword, reference, figure and table limits for each category are given in the instructions for authors, and the charge that applies to each is on the article processing charges page.
06 · Submitting
Where to send work that fits
Manuscripts may be submitted by any of the three routes below. Authors must use only one submission route for the same manuscript.
- Primary route ManuscriptZone oap.manuscriptzone.net
- Alternative route Manuscript submission form openaccesspub.org/manuscript-submission-form
- Assisted route Editorial office [email protected]