Scope and Subject Areas
Research Articles
Registered Report Protocols
Registered Report Results
Short Communications
Case Reports
Methods and Techniques
Reviews
Myths and Methodologies
Symposium Reviews
Lectures
Viewpoints
Connections
Letters to the Editor
Corrigenda/Errata
Language
Spelling and Style
Abbreviations
Symbols, Units and Mathematical Notation
Chemical and Biological Nomenclature
Figures and Legends
Statistics Policy
Supporting Information
Open Science Badges
Links to Websites
Use of Previously Published Material
Permission and Copyright
Date of Receipt
Video Abstracts
Experimental Physiology publishes research articles that report novel insights into homeostatic and adaptive responses in health and pathophysiological mechanisms in disease. We welcome papers that embrace the journal's orientation of integration and translation, which includes studies of the adaptive responses to exercise, acute and chronic environmental challenges, growth and aging, and diseases where integrative homeostatic mechanisms play a key role in the response to and evolution of the disease process.. Examples of such diseases include hypertension, heart failure, hypoxic lung disease, endocrine and neurological disorders. We are also keen to publish research that has a translational aspect or clinical application. Comparative physiology work that can be applied to understanding human physiology is also encouraged.
Manuscripts that report the use of bioinformatic, genomic, molecular, proteomic and cellular techniques to provide novel insights into integrative physiological and pathophysiological mechanisms are welcomed.
We are also interested in methodological papers reporting important new developments in physiological techniques that could lead to significant new insights (a 'Short Communication' is likely to be a suitable format for this article type).
Papers which observe a significant new physiological behaviour or phenomenon which has the potential to alter the understanding of that field, but which have not yet identified the mechanism(s) may also be considered. Such papers should demonstrate the experimental examination and exclusion of a number of plausible mechanisms for the important novel phenomenon.
When submitting a manuscript, authors will be required to specify its subject area and suggest the most appropriate Senior Editor(s) from the current Editorial Board. All submissions will be checked for compliance with the journal's ethics policies.
Experimental Physiology supports format-free initial submissions, meaning authors do not have to conform to journal style when first submitting. However, to facilitate the reviewing process, the submitted manuscript should be formatted with the body text in 12 point Times New Roman, or a similar standard font, and line spacing of 1.5. Text should be left-aligned and surrounded by 3 cm margins.
Manuscripts should be submitted initially as a single PDF file; numbered figures and tables should be included in the PDF file. There is no need to provide figures or tables separately.
The following information is required for all submissions:
If the paper was first published on bioRxiv, there is an automatic transfer option to Experimental Physiology's submission system. Please refer to the bioRxiv website for more information. Please note that authors will receive an automated response from Experimental Physiology when the transfer has been made. Please contact journal staff ( expphysiol@physoc.org ) if you do not receive confirmation within 24 hours of making the transfer.
The usual format for research articles is:
All submissions should fulfil our scope and embrace the journal's orientation of integration and translation. Footnotes are not acceptable.
Papers should be written as clearly and concisely as possible and figures and tables should be kept to the minimum necessary to illustrate the hypothesis being tested and support the conclusions. There are no absolute restrictions on the length of Research submissions but 6,000 words including legends and references is normally sufficient. Where there are clear and compelling reasons, a more extensive manuscript will be considered subject to the agreement of the Editor.
The title page should include Title/Authors/Addresses/Additional information as listed below.
Title. The title should normally contain no more than 150 characters (including spaces). Include the species, tissue, organ or system if this is important in the context of the findings. Avoid specialist abbreviations if possible. For abbreviations and symbols that are acceptable in the title see List 1. Titles should be drafted carefully to indicate broadly what the paper is about to all Experimental Physiology readers, including those who are not specialists in the field.
For suggestions on how to optimize your title for search engines see http://www.wiley.com/legacy/wi leyblackwell/pdf/SEOforAuthorsLINKSrev.pdf
Authorship. The Editorial Board endorses the general principles set out in Guidelines on Good Publication Practice produced by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The author submitting a manuscript must confirm that all persons designated as authors qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify for authorship are listed, and that all authors have approved the final version of the paper. Each author should take responsibility for a particular section of the study and have contributed to writing the paper (see Author contributions). Acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not alone justify authorship; these contributions to the study should be listed in the Acknowledgements.
Additional information such as 'X and Y have contributed equally to this work' may be added as a footnote on the title page.
If authorship of a manuscript changes during the publication process, notification of the change, signed by all authors must be sent to the Publications Office.
The editorial process cannot proceed until this notification is received.
Addresses. Authors should provide the minimum address information consistent with clarity and should ensure that author affiliations are clearly indicated.
Additional information. The following information is also required on the title page:
Authors are required to complete two 'New findings' boxes on the submission form using no more than 100 words in total distributed between the answers to two questions.
For Research articles:
For Case Reports:
For Reviews (including Symposium Reviews and Lectures):
This information will influence editorial handling of the manuscript.
Please include your New Findings questions and answers in your submitted manuscript file as bullet points above the Abstract where they will be published if your article is accepted for publication. Please ensure that your entry is grammatically correct and does not include any undefined abbreviations.
Please see New Findings examples:
'Altered ion transport by thyroid epithelia from CFTR−/− pigs suggests mechanisms for hypothyroidism in cystic fibrosis' (click on title for Abstract)
What is the central question of this study?
Subclinical hypothyroidism is associated with cystic fibrosis although the mechanisms through which gene mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) produce this effect have not been previously explored.
What is the main finding and its importance?
Using well-differentiated primary thyroid epithelial cells cultured from CFTR-/- pigs, we show the requirement for CFTR in cAMP-stimulated Cl− secretion. Knockout of CFTR also promotes increased Na+ absorption without increased expression of the epithelial sodium channel. These functional alterations lead to several models for CFTR function in thyroid and suggest mechanisms for cystic fibrosis-induced changes in thyroid function.
Cerebroprotection by angiotensin- (1-7) in endothelin-1-induced ischaemic stroke (click on title for Abstract)
What is the central question of this study?
Activation of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, resulting in production of angiotensin-(1-7) and stimulation of its receptor (Mas), exerts beneficial actions in a number cardiovascular diseases. A potential role for angiotensin-(1-7) in cerebral ischaemic stroke has not previously been reported.
What is the main finding and its importance?
We show that pharmacological activation of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 or central administration of angiotensin-(1-7) attenuates cerebral damage induced by middle cerebral artery occlusion in rats. This role of the angiotensin-(1-7) has not previously been reported and identifies a potential new therapeutic target in ischaemic strokes.
This should be in one unnumbered paragraph that accurately reflects the contents of the paper and makes clear the physiological significance of the work, the problem addressed, the nature of the results, and the principal conclusions; authors are expected to conclude the summary by explaining the conceptual novelty and the broader physiological importance of their work. Results should be presented quantitatively where appropriate, together with the statistical significance, and the conclusions indicated. References may not be cited. Since the Abstract may be used by abstracting services, a limit of 250 words is recommended. It must not exceed 5 % of the text (excluding references and figure legends), with an absolute maximum of one printed page.
See Guidelines for optimizing the Title and Abstract of your article for search engines.
The Introduction should make the background and the object of the research clear, indicate the justification for the work and be understandable to the non-specialist. Reference to the authors' previous work is desirable only if it has a direct bearing on the subject of the paper; an extensive historical review is not appropriate.
Please read and comply with our policies regarding Animal Experiments, Human Experiments and statistics..
A detailed explanation of the journal's principles and guidelines on animal experimentation, which includes a checklist for authors, is given in 'Principles and standards for reporting animal experiments in The Journal of Physiology and Experimental Physiology' by David Grundy, Experimental Physiology. doi: 10.1113/EP085299.
Methods should be described once only and should not appear in the legends to figures and tables. Details should be sufficient to allow the work to be repeated by others.
The Methods section should start with a paragraph headed 'Ethics Approval'. Animal studies must meet a minimum set of requirements. A checklist outlining these requirements and detailing the information that must be provided in the paper can be found here. Please note that ether is not an acceptable anaesthetic as it no longer complies with the principle of best practice.
Authors should demonstrate in their Methods section that their experiments comply with the policies and regulations set out in the editorial.
If experiments were conducted on humans, authors must provide confirmation that informed consent was obtained, preferably in writing, that the studies conformed to the standards set by the latest revision of the Declaration of Helsinki (or the version that was in place at the time of the experiments), and that the procedures were approved by a properly constituted ethics committee, which should be named. If the research study was registered (clause 35 of the Declaration of Helsinki) the registration database should be indicated, else the lack of registration should be noted as an exception (e.g. the study conformed to the standard set by the Declaration of Helsinki, except for registration in a database). More information can be found here.
Authors must include the reference number from their Institutional Ethics Committee Approval form or if no number has been provided, give details of who has issued the 'Letter of approval' and on what date.
Ethics information must be included for each manuscript. It is not sufficient to refer to previous publications for details, unless the paper is one of a series published in the same issue.
Data Deposition/Accessibility of Sequence Data
Please state access codes for data deposition (e.g. protein/DNA/RNA sequences, macromolecular structures) and where relevant, indicate where computer source codes can be obtained.
Solutions, chemicals and equipment
Precisely identify models and reagents used. State the source, including name of the company/developer/distributor and catalogue reference number and the specificity of any reagents and unique materials. The composition of solutions should be specified. Where appropriate, lists of solutions, chemicals and equipment, and an explanation of data handling procedures may be given as separate headed paragraphs.
Manuscripts are accepted on the understanding that authors are prepared to make available to other investigators any unique reagents or cell lines used in the work reported.
Tissues and cell cultures
Authors working on isolated tissues, including primary cell cultures, must state whether the donor animal was anaesthetised or killed, and give details of the relevant procedures. Where tissues are obtained from an abattoir or similar establishment the method of killing need not be specified unless scientifically important. Experimental Physiology reserves the right to triage without review phenomenological cell line studies which do not identify a causal mechanism or are otherwise deemed not of broad interest.
Antibodies
All articles that use antibodies must provide the following information:
RRIDs
Experimental Physiology is pleased to support the National Institutes of Health Rigor and Transparency Guidelines. To comply, we ask that authors include Research Resource Identifiers (RRID's) for all "Key Biological Resources", which include antibodies, cell lines, model organisms and software tools used in the study. To help our authors transparently cite resources there is a single website where research resources can be found and a "cite this" button under each resource that should be included in the methods section of your manuscript. Several examples of properly formatted methods text can be found below:
Please find all of the antibodies, organisms, cell lines and software tools that you have used in the course of this study and add the RRID for each in the methods section. If you need help with either finding a resource or registering a new resource, the help desk on SciCrunch is staffed and you should hear back within one business day.
Please note, searching the website by catalogue or stock number is usually most effective in quickly retrieving the correct resource.
Presenting the data. Data may be better presented graphically than in tables. Where possible, graphs should show individual values, rather than solid bars indicating a mean value. If a plot of individual values obscures some of the data presented, a box and whisker plot can be used to show mean or median, and 95% confidence intervals or quartiles.
Describing the samples. To characterise a normally distributed sample, report the mean (SD), and the number of samples (n). Use an appropriate number of significant figures. If samples are not normally distributed, use median and quartile values, or transform the data to obtain a more normal distribution. When describing the precision of estimation of a mean value, 95% confidence limits of the mean should be used, rather than the SEM.
Clearly indicate any inclusion or exclusion criteria. State whether the experimenter was 'blinded' to the experimental conditions, if applicable.
Comparing data. To express a difference between a control group and treated group, state the mean values, the estimated difference between the measurements, and the confidence limits of this difference. Since a common significance level for P is taken to be 0.05, the common confidence limits used are the 95% intervals.
Do not state that there is no difference between samples unless you are confident that the test has sufficient power to allow this conclusion. If necessary, indicate the power of the test, to distinguish absence of evidence from evidence of absence.
Statistical tests. Tests of significance should be specified on each occasion and in full, e.g. Student's paired t test. Use the exact P value, to the appropriate number of decimals, particularly when values are near a stated limit. For example, P = 0.051 and P = 0.049 have very similar implications.
Experimental Physiology has published a series of advisory editorials on statistical reporting.
Please note that Experimental Physiology will ask authors at the revised manuscript stage to submit complete, uncropped, original western blot/gel images if they are not included in the manuscript. Checks will be carried out to ensure that no inappropriate, unethical or misleading image manipulation has occurred. The full, original blots should be labelled/highlighted so that we can clearly see which sections have been used in the manuscript figures. The original blots should be uploaded as 'Supporting information for review process only' during submission.
Data Deposition/Accessibility of Sequence Data.
Experimental Physiology is committed to encouraging the free exchange of scientific information and to promote progress in all areas of physiological research. Experimental Physiology requires, as a condition for publication, that nucleic acid and protein sequences, microarray data and data obtained using high throughput sequencing techniques, which support the results in the paper, should be archived in an appropriate public database (see below) and must be accessible without restriction from the date of publication.
An entry name or accession number, together with a direct link, must be included within the Methods section in the final version of the manuscript. Microarray data should be MIAME compliant (for guidelines, see http://www.mged.org/Workgroups/MIAME/miame.html). FGED (The Functional Genomics Data) Society: MIAME (Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment). The public repositories ArrayExpress at the EBI (UK), GEO at NCBI (US) and CIBEX at DDBJ (Japan) are designed to accept, hold and distribute MIAME compliant microarray data. Exceptions may be granted at the discretion of the Editor, e.g. for sensitive information that might compromise the anonymity of human subjects.
Examples of suitable databases:
GenBank (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank/index.html),
EMBL (http://www.ebi.ac.uk),
DNA Data Bank of Japan (http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp)
Protein Data Bank Japan (PDBj, http://www.pdbj.org)
Protein Databank (PDB, http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/)
Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB, http://www.wwpdb.org)
UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot (http://web.expasy.org/docs/swiss-prot_guideline.html
Data files in repositories
Authors are encouraged to upload their data files to repositories (such as FigShare) as an alternative or addition to publishing it as 'supporting information'. Before uploading data to such repositories, authors should find the 'DOI Link' in their acceptance email and include it in the upload (as a reference) to establish a link from the repository data back to the published article. After uploading data to a repository, authors should send the DOI/url link provided by the repository to the Publications Office. so that it can be included in the final published version of their manuscript. Alternative repositories to FigShare can be found at https://www.re3data.org/ .
The Discussion, which follows the Results section, should be separate from it. The assumptions involved in making inferences from the experimental results should be stated. The Discussion should not merely recapitulate the results. Authors should provide a succinct conclusion to their work and are encouraged to conclude the Discussion by expressing an opinion on the relevance of the results in the context of work cited in the paper.
In appropriate circumstances an Appendix or a Theory section may be accepted where, for example, it is necessary to derive mathematical results required in the paper.
The paper should conclude with a list of the papers and books cited in the text. Authors should avoid an excessive number of references. Normally about 50 should be adequate. The order of references is strictly alphabetical, regardless of chronology.
References should be prepared according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th Edition). This means in text citations should follow the author-date method whereby the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text. for example, (Jones, 1998). The complete reference list should appear alphabetically by name at the end of the paper.
A sample of the most common entries in reference lists appears below. Please note that a DOI should be provided for all references where available. For more information about APA referencing style, please refer to the APA's resources. Please note that for journal articles, issue numbers are not included unless each issue in the volume begins with page one.
For a work with up to 20 authors, include all of the names in the reference. When the work has 21 or more authors, include only the first 19 names, an ellipsis, and the final name (with no ampersand).
Example of reference with two to 20 authors
Beers, S.R., & De Bellis, M.D. (2002). Neurophysiological function in children with maltreatment-related posttraumatic stress disorder. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 159, 483-486. https://doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.159.3.483
Ramus, F., Rosen, S., Dakin, S.C., Day, B.L., Castellote, J.M., White, S., & Frith, U. (2003). Theories of developmental dyslexia: Insights from a multiple case study of dyslexic adults. Brain, 126(4), 841-865. https://doi:10.1093/brain/awg076
Example of reference with more than 20 authors
Wiskunde, B., Arslan, M., Fischer, P., Nowak, L., Van den Berg, O., Coetzee, L., Juárez, U., Riyaziyyat, E., Wang, C., Zhang, I., Li, P., Yang, R., Kumar, B., Xu, A., Martinez, R., McIntosh, V., Ibáñez, L. M., Mäkinen, G., Virtanen, E., . . . Kovács, A. (2019). Indie pop rocks mathematics: Twenty One Pilots, Nicolas Bourbaki, and the empty set. Journal of Improbable Mathematics, 27(1), 1935-1968. https://doi.org/10.0000/3mp7y-537
Bradley-Johnson, S. (1994). Psychoeducational assessment of students who are visually impaired or blind: Infancy through high school (2nd ed.). Austin, TX: Pro-ed.
Citethisforme is a free online site which converts reference material into different referencing styles
Unpublished material may be referred to sparingly in the text, by giving the authors' initials and names followed by 'unpublished observations' or 'personal communication'; such citations should not appear in the list of references. References cited as being 'in press' must have been accepted for publication, and the name of the journal or publisher included in the reference list.
Experimental Physiology allow authors to cite preprint articles in their submitted articles as long as the source is stated clearly.
Preprints deposited in bioRxiv should be cited using their digital object identifier (DOI). Example: Author AN, Author BT. 2013. My article title. bioRxiv https://.doi.org/10.1101/123456
All manuscripts must contain a statement regarding Funding, Conflicts of Interest, Author Contributions and Data Availability. An Acknowledgements statement may also be included after the Funding statement. If you have no conflicts of interest or have not received funding, statements to this effect must be included.
Experimental Physiology requires the provision of a Data Availability Statement for all papers reporting original data, both in the manuscript and in the appropriate field during submission.
It is a requirement of the journal that all original 'raw' data (e.g. recordings, blots, micrographs) from which graphical and/or tabular summary data is generated is archived and fully available to The Journal upon reasonable request.
The Data Availability Statement should describe the availability of these data. If any data cannot be shared, the reason(s) should also be outlined in this statement. Authors must include in their Statement a link to the repository they have used (if applicable), reference the data in the appropriate sections(s) of their manuscript and cite the data they have shared in the References section. Whenever possible the scripts and other artefacts used to generate the analyses presented in the paper should also be publicly available/archived.
If sharing data compromises ethical standards or legal requirements then authors are not expected to share them, but should note this in their Statement.
Authors may wish to use the Standard Templates for Author use to select appropriate wording.
If your submitted article has been published on a not for profit subject based preprint server (e.g. bioRxiv) please provide a footnote stating that this article was first published as a preprint and provide full citation using the digital object identifier (DOI). Example: This article first appeared as a preprint: Author AN, Author BT. 2013. My article title. bioRxiv https://.doi.org/10.1101/123456
All manuscripts must contain a statement regarding conflicts of interests. If there are none, a statement to this effect must be included. Authors should disclose any conflict of interest in accordance with journal policy.
This section must state the laboratory where the experiments were performed and list the contribution (in words) of each author (using their full names) to the following aspects of the study:
All authors must have contributed to 1 or 2 AND 3.
It must also confirm that all authors:
and that
Authors are encouraged to use the CRediT 'Contributor Roles Taxonomy' to detail authors' contributions. CRediT is a high-level taxonomy, including 14 roles, that can be used to represent the roles typically played by contributors to scientific scholarly output. The roles describe each contributor's specific contribution to the scholarly output. More information can be found here.
Contributors who do not meet the above criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors, but have their contribution (such as acquisition of funding; general supervision of a research group or general administrative support; and writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading) listed in the Acknowledgements.
Additional information such as 'X and Y have contributed equally to this work' may be added as a footnote on the title page.
Background
Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) tools, such as ChatGPT or Gemini, utilise large language models to create textual or image-based responses to user prompts. The use of such tools in academia is proliferating, and we recognise this presents the potential for both benefit and harm to academic literature. Experimental Physiology has introduced an AIGC policy for authors and reviewers. This policy may be updated as AI technologies develop further. Tools that are solely used to improve spelling and grammar are not included in the scope of this policy.
Policy for authors
Experimental Physiology requires authors to fully disclose the use of any GAI tools in the preparation of their manuscript, as per Wiley’s policy, and in accordance with the position statement set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics. Specifically, the term ‘manuscript preparation’ includes, but is not limited to, the writing of a manuscript, the production of images or graphical elements, or data collection and analysis. This disclosure should be placed in the Methods section, and must be transparent and detailed. Specifically, any such disclosure should include the name(s), model and version of AI technology used, and exact details on the purpose for and methods of its use. Experimental Physiology will assess whether the utilisation and disclosure of AI align with its publication policies and practices. Content may be rejected or subject to post-publication changes based on insufficient declaration or unsatisfactory circumstances of GAI tool usage.
GAI tools cannot be named as authors. Authors are responsible for both the accuracy of information provided by these tools, and for correctly referencing any supporting work on which that information depends.
Policy for reviewers
Experimental Physiology prohibits reviewers from using GAI tools, such as ChatGPT or Gemini. The use of these tools in this context necessarily entails the submission of material which is not in the public domain, and thereby constitutes infringement upon the intellectual property and confidentiality rights of submitting authors.
Authors may now include their personal pronouns in the author by-lines of their published articles and on Wiley Online Library. This is optional, and not a requirement. Authors can include their pronouns in their manuscript upon submission and can add, edit, or remove their pronouns at any stage upon request. Submitting/corresponding authors should never add, edit, or remove a co-author’s pronouns without that co-author’s consent. Where post-publication changes to pronouns are required, these can be made without a correction notice to the paper, in accordance with Wiley’s Name Change Policy, to protect the author’s privacy. Terms which fall outside of the scope of personal pronouns, e.g., proper or improper nouns, are currently not supported.
Authors must indicate all sources of funding, including grant numbers. If authors have not received funding, this must be stated.
It is the responsibility of authors funded by the UKRI to adhere to their policy regarding funding sources and underlying research material. The policy requires funding information to be included within the acknowledgements section of a paper. The policy also requires all research articles, if applicable, to include a statement on how any underlying research materials, such as data, samples or models, can be accessed. The UKRI supports the principles outlined in the Concordat on Open Research Data, recognising that research data wherever possible should be made openly available. However, the policy does not require that the data must be made open. If there are considered to be good or compelling reasons to protect access to the data, for example commercial confidentiality or legitimate sensitivities around data derived from potentially identifiable human participants, these should be included in the statement.
Acknowledgements should be the minimum consistent with courtesy. The wording of acknowledgements of scientific assistance or advice must have been seen and approved by the persons concerned.
Tables should be used sparingly. They should be referred to in the text by arabic numerals, e.g. Table 3. Each table should have its own self-explanatory title. The same information should not be presented in both tabular and graphical forms. Tables will be processed as text and therefore should NOT be submitted as figures.
Please see full instructions for figures
Authors are encouraged to submit coloured illustrations when they enhance the scientific value of the paper. As Experimental Physiology is an online-only journal, there is no charge for colour figures.
To facilitate compliance with UKRI and NIH Guidelines Experimental Physiology authors are encouraged to upload supporting data files containing the individual results represented in the published figures or tables as means (SD), means (95% confidence interval), or medians (± interquartile range). The files should be clearly labelled and will not be peer reviewed. All supporting data should be submitted with the original manuscript and referred to in the relevant section of the main text. Authors are encouraged to upload their data files on FigShare. Click here for more information.
Authors may also include videos, 3-D structures/images that may substantially enhance the importance of the research and be of benefit to readers, but which is not essential for the understanding of the paper.
Any information essential for the full understanding of the manuscript must be incorporated into the article itself as part of the text or as standard figures or tables.
Authors should supply supporting information 'for review purposes only' (which will not be published) highlighting any overlapping articles or other information necessary to review the manuscript.
See full Supporting information guidelines for further information.
Authors are encouraged to provide a figure for possible use on the cover although there is no guarantee that it will be selected. It need not necessarily appear in the paper but should be related to it. It should be uploaded as a supplementary file. The figure must not have appeared or been submitted elsewhere. The most effective figures for use on the cover are simple (all labelling removed) and colourful - see previous covers.
Submitting your Manuscript
The manuscript submission process starts by pressing the "Submit Manuscript" link on your "Home" page after you have logged into the system.
Please make sure you have gathered all the required manuscript information listed above BEFORE starting the submission process. Please press home to continue.
Registered Reports are a form of empirical article in which the methods and proposed analyses are pre-registered and reviewed prior to research being conducted. This format is designed to minimise various biases, including publication bias, in deductive science, while also allowing flexibility to conduct exploratory (unregistered) analyses and report serendipitous findings. Experimental Physiology publishes Registered Reports in two stages: Registered Report Protocols and Registered Report Results.
The cornerstone of the Registered Reports format is that the research question and proposed methods are evaluated for suitability prior to any data being collected. Therefore, a significant part of the manuscript is assessed prior to data collection. Only Registered Report Protocols (RRPs) that are considered to ask significant and topical questions will be reviewed favourably. These RRPs will include a summary, description of the key research question and background literature, hypotheses, experimental procedures, proposed data analyses, a statistical power analysis (or Bayesian equivalent), and pilot data (where applicable).
These RRPs will be assessed by an Editor for suitability. Protocols that pass initial assessment will then be sent for in-depth peer review, following the journal's standard practices. If the Protocol requires substantial revision, it will be rejected prior to full review. If the Protocol is reviewed favourably it will be published, with in principle acceptance (IPA) also granted to the proposed study. The authors are then asked to conduct the proposed study, adhering exactly to the peer-reviewed procedures, and submit their results (Registered Report Results) to the journal for final consideration. If authors need to deviate from the accepted Protocol, they will be asked to describe any alterations in full, providing rationale for any deviation from the agreed Protocol. The Registered Report Results (RRR) will be sent to the same Editor(s) and referees, where possible, as the Protocol for review to assess whether the Protocol, including analyses, has been followed and data interpretation is appropriate. Authors will be asked to share their raw data as supporting information of the final RRR, and are encouraged to upload their raw data and digital study materials to a publicly accessible file sharing service. Pending quality checks and a sensible interpretation of the findings, the manuscript will be published regardless of the observed results.
Authors who publish their Protocol in Experimental Physiology and are in receipt of an IPA are expected to submit their RRR to the journal, and will not submit their results to another journal. However, if authors do wish to publish their results in another journal, the publication of the Protocol in Experimental Physiology must be cited and cannot be reproduced.
Initial RRP submissions should include the following sections and should be written in the future tense:
In considering papers at Registered Report Protocol stage, Editors and reviewers will be asked to assess:
1. The importance of the research question(s)
2. The logic, rationale, and plausibility of the proposed hypotheses
3. The soundness and feasibility of the methodology and analysis plan (including statistical power analysis where appropriate, and thoroughness of subject characteristics including inclusion and exclusion criteria, but excluding ethical and medical supervision considerations). Please note that acceptance of a RRP should not be construed as ethical or medical approval of the outlined study design.
4. Whether the clarity and degree of methodological detail is sufficient to exactly replicate the proposed experimental procedures and analysis plan
5. Whether the authors have proposed sufficient outcome-neutral tests for ensuring that the results obtained can test the stated hypotheses, including positive controls and quality checks
Authors are reminded that any deviation from the stated experimental procedures, regardless of how minor it may seem to the authors, could lead to rejection of the manuscript at the RRR stage. In cases where the pre-registered protocol is more than trivially altered after IPA due, for example, to unforeseen circumstances (e.g. change of equipment or unanticipated technical error), the authors must contact the Publications Office immediately for advice, and prior to the completion of data collection. Minor changes to the protocol may be permitted if fully explained and justified . All deviations must be reported in the RRR manuscript. If the authors wish to alter the experimental question or protocol more substantially following IPA, but still wish to publish their article as a Registered Report then the RRP must be withdrawn and resubmitted as a new submission. In such cases, a note will be added to the original RRP explaining why the corresponding RRR will not be published. Note that all registered analyses in the RRP must be undertaken, but additional unregistered analyses can also be included in a RRR article (see below).
Once the RRP is published it should be registered by the authors on the Open Science Framework or another recognised repository. The journal welcomes submissions proposing secondary analyses of existing data sets, provided authors can supply sufficient evidence (e.g. self-certification; letter from independent gatekeeper) to confirm that they have had no prior access to the data in question. For advice on the eligibility of specific scenarios, authors are welcome to contact the Publications Office.
Once the research is complete, authors should prepare their Registered Reports Results for further review. The RRR must include the following:
The RRR submission will most likely be considered by the same reviewers as in the RRP, but could also be assessed by new reviewers. In considering papers at RRR stage, reviewers will be asked to decide:
1. Whether the data are able to test the authors' proposed hypotheses by satisfying the approved outcome-neutral conditions (such as quality checks, positive controls)
2. Whether the Introduction, rationale and stated hypotheses are the same as the approved RRP submission
3. Whether the authors adhered precisely to the registered experimental procedures or have made acceptable /agreed deviations
4. Whether any unregistered post hoc analyses added by the authors are justified, methodologically sound, and informative
5. Whether the authors' interpretation of the data and subsequent conclusions are justified
It is recommended that anonymised raw data and digital study materials are made freely available in a public repository/archive with a link provided within the RRR manuscript. Authors are free to use any repository that renders data and materials freely and publicly accessible and provides a digital object identifier (DOI) to ensure that the data remain persistent, unique and citable.
Other than pre-registered and approved pilot data, no data acquired prior to the date of IPA is admissible in the RRR submission. Raw data must be accompanied by guidance notes, where required, to assist other scientists in replicating the analysis plan. Authors are required to upload any relevant analysis scripts and other digital experimental materials that would assist in replication.
Any supplementary figures, tables, or other text (such as supplementary methods) can either be included as standard supporting information that accompanies the paper, or they can be archived together with the data. Please note that the raw data itself should be archived (see above) as well as submitted to the journal as supplementary material.
Reviewers are informed that editorial decisions at the RRR stage will not be based on the perceived 'importance' of the results, but rather on the adherence to the agreed RRP and the interpretation of these results. Thus, while reviewers are free to enter such comments on the record, they will not influence editorial decisions. Reviewers of RRRs may request that authors report additional post hoc tests on their data only if such tests are necessary to satisfy one or more of the RRRs review criteria or clarify the conclusions.
Non-submission of Registered Reports Results
It is possible that authors with IPA may choose not to submit a Registered Reports Results manuscript following or during data collection. Possible reasons could include major technical error, an inability to complete the study due to unforeseen circumstances, or the desire to submit the results to a different journal. In all such cases, the authors must inform the Publications Office of their intention not to submit a RRR. Any such withdrawal, and the reason for withdrawal will be published and linked to the RRP. Partial RRRs are not permitted i.e. authors cannot publish part of a registered study by selectively withholding/not completing one or more of the planned experiments. A notice will be issued on the RRP if the RRR is not submitted by the agreed deadline (which can be extended in negotiation with the Publications Office). Authors will be contacted prior to the notice being issued, but the journal reserves the right to issue a notice without the authors consent after a significant period of no communication from the author has elapsed.
Experimental Physiology will consider Short Communications containing: (i) original and significant research findings, or (ii) novel research techniques that merit publication as Short Communications. The purpose of Short Communications is to publish results that are significant and scientifically rigorous, and which will form the basis of further work. Papers that report a significant new physiological behaviour or phenomenon which has the potential to alter the understanding of that field, but which have not yet identified the mechanisms, are particularly suitable for this format. Short Communications must comply with requirements set out for full research articles except that the maximum length is 4,000 words, including references, and a maximum of four figures or tables in total. Short Communications are subject to normal peer review. No additional experiments or new data will be requested. If significant revisions are necessary, the paper will be rejected. Authors must ensure their manuscripts comply with the journal's statistics policy.
Case Reports are articles that provide a perspective on one-off cases and individual presentations in both humans and animals. As these presentations are generally studies of exceptional individuals or cases they can provide unique and revealing insights that other papers do not.
For publication in Experimental Physiology they must have a physiological focus and adhere to journal policy for Human and Animal experiments. Case Reports undergo normal peer review.
The suggested article length is up to 2,000 words plus references and four figures/tables/videos
Arrangement of Case Reports:
Authors interested in contributing are welcome to send an outline for consideration to the Publications Office.
Authors may find the CARE case report guidelines/checklist useful.
Experimental Physiology invites articles exploring new or improved physiological research methods and/or techniques. These may follow the format of a Research Article or Review, and will contain physiological data that highlight the significance and application(s) intended. Further information, such as videos, can be shown as 'Supporting Information' in the online version.
Methods and Techniques articles will likely include details regarding cutting-edge developments in the field that collectively reflect methodological and technical best practice, including e.g. improved resolution, validation, sensitivity, specificity, reproducibility, and how variability within or between participants/preparations can be minimised and/or addressed. Practical tips for effective use, and how to avoid common errors including misinterpretation of fundamental mechanisms and/or diagnostic outcome(s) may also be included.
Reviews. Authors interested in submitting a Review are encouraged to send a pre-submission enquiry or outline for consideration to the Publications Office. The outline should briefly state why the proposed topic is topical and of interest to physiological and translational researchers. It should also indicate the structure of the review. An invitation to submit a Review based on an approved outline does not guarantee acceptance but guarantees the article will be sent out for full peer review.
Authors may submit 'uninvited' Reviews without prior approval of an outline but are warned that these may be triaged without review if they are not compatible with the invited content already scheduled.
Reviews should provide an accessible synthesis of current information in topical areas of physiology and discuss critically and concisely current developments. Reviews should be between 3000 and 7500 words, including references and figures.
Non-peer-reviewed/unpublished data should not be included. However, non-peer-reviewed models and concepts may be referred to without presenting the data, especially if they are developed as an outcome of the review.
Experimental Physiology does not accept reviews that contain overlapping material. Reviews submitted to Experimental Physiology must be distinct to previously published reviews and contain material that has not been reviewed by the author previously.
All authors should have been involved in the writing of the paper and the approval the final submission. This should be stated under 'Author Contributions'.
Authors are encouraged to submit an author profile, a short biography (no more than 100 words for one author or 150 words in total for two authors) and a portrait photograph of up to two leading authors on the paper. These should be uploaded, clearly labelled, with the manuscript submission. Any standard image format for the photograph is acceptable, but the resolution should be at least 300 dpi, preferably more.
Arrangement of Reviews
Authors should request permission from the original publisher in good time if they wish to reproduce material that has already been published.
For instructions on how to submit files larger than 10 MB please contact the Publications Office.
In response to the challenge of improving transparency and reproducibility in published research results, Experimental Physiology invites short reviews exploring the underlying principles of selected methodologies/techniques and consider/identify appropriate and inappropriate uses.
They will outline best practice in physiology for particular methods or equipment in broad, common use and seek to inform to both early career and established researchers.
Contributions to this series will normally be by invitation of the Editorial Board, the articles should fulfil the criteria below and will be subject to our normal peer review process.
Authors interested in contributing are welcome to send an outline for consideration to the Publications Office
The suggested article length is 3000 words including references.
Arrangement:
Authors should request permission from the original publisher if they wish to reproduce figures or material that has already been published.
Unpublished/non-peer-reviewed data should not be included, unless used as exemplars of good or bad practice. There should be no overlapping material.
All authors should have been involved in the writing of the paper and the approval of the final submission. This should be stated under 'Author contributions'.
The Editorial Board identify Symposia at Scientific Meetings which best fulfil the journal's scope and will be of most interest to its readers. Selected Speakers from a Symposium are invited to submit Reports for publication in Experimental Physiology by an agreed date. the Symposium Reviews will be published together, subject to review, following or in time for the Meeting. The Symposium organiser(s) is asked to provide an introduction (text and audio) for publication with the Reports.
Symposium Reviews should reflect or expand on the talk given by the speaker at the symposium providing a succinct, readable review of the proceedings and what is new and exciting in the field and should not contain overlapping material. If you are reporting 'in press' or submitted results from the talk which you are reluctant to include in your Symposium Review, a purely descriptive reference to these in the Report, without presenting the data, will enhance interest in the research article when it is published. Experimental Physiology would welcome submission of any related research article, this could be published, if accepted, either with the Symposium Review in the dedicated Symposium issue or in a later issue.
Authors wishing to reproduce material that has already been published must request permission to do so from the relevant journal at the earliest possible stage.
Symposium Reviews should be 2000-3000 words. This limit includes all references (in-text citations and reference list). They should present new concepts and theories or sufficient new findings to reach high enough priority for publication.
All authors should have been involved in the writing of the paper and the approval of the final submission.
Arrangement of Symposium Reviews:
Symposium Introduction
A Symposium Introduction will be published at the front of an issue as a lively editorial comment to attract readers to the Symposium Reviews; it should normally be written by the Symposium organizer(s) or Chair.
The Introduction should give an overview of what was reported at the Symposium, referring to each of the Talks and highlighting the key points made by each of the speakers.
Submission of the written introduction will be requested once all the Symposium Reviews have been accepted for publication.
Arrangement of Introductions:
Experimental Physiology publishes regular lectures given at The Physiological Society and other Scientific Meetings. Lectures are invited for publication by the Editorial Board and peer-reviewed by a member of the Editorial Board and/or Expert Referees to ensure factual accuracy, appropriate citations, and scholarly balance.
The format and style of 'Lecture' articles are flexible. As a guide they are not normally expected to exceed 5000 words and not contain overlapping material.
Authors are encouraged to submit an author profile, a short biography (no more than 100 words for one author or 150 words in total for two authors) and a portrait photograph of up to two leading authors on the paper. These should be uploaded, clearly labelled, with the manuscript submission. Any standard image format for the photograph is acceptable, but the resolution should be at least 300 dpi, preferably more.
Arrangement of Lectures:
Viewpoints will be published at the front of an issue:
In both cases the Viewpoint should:
The Viewpoint is usually written by one of the reviewers of the selected paper(s) or another expert in the field suggested by the reviewer or editor. In order to be published in the same issue as the selected paper, Viewpoints on single research articles must be submitted within two weeks of being sent the selected focus paper.
A Viewpoint on a single article should be between 500-1000 words and may include a maximum of five references. A Viewpoint on a set of articles can be up to 1500 words and may include a maximum of 10 references. The selected paper(s) should be referred to as early as possible in the Viewpoint, within the first paragraph.
Arrangement of Viewpoint:
Viewpoints should emphasise why the research or themed issue is an important addition to the field or which existing paradigms it challenges. Detailed methodology, technical descriptions or extensive background should be avoided, and jargon should be kept to a minimum as Viewpoints may be read by a broad cross-section of biomedical and life scientists.
Aim for three paragraphs (bullet-pointed above).
Connections articles are invited by the Connections Editor, who identifies a sequence of three related articles (each one citing the next) and invites the author of the middle article to:
The article should be submitted within 4 weeks of invitation or by the agreed submission deadline. It should be up to 1200 words. Authors should provide a paragraph towards the start of the manuscript that summarises the connection. It may include a maximum of two novel references in addition to the three that form the connection (in addition to the 1200 word limit). The selected article (2) should be referred to as early as possible in the Viewpoint, within the first paragraph. Aim for three paragraphs (using bullet-points above as a guide).
Arrangement of Connection:
A 'personalised' approach to the article would be appreciated, and it should emphasise why the research is an important addition to the field or which existing paradigms it challenges. Detailed methodology, technical descriptions or extensive background should be avoided, and jargon should be kept to a minimum as this may be read by a broad cross-section of biomedical and life scientists.
Submitted letters should address scientific issues arising out of a recent paper published in Experimental Physiology, such as interpretation of data or methodology. The content should be objective, there should be no references of a personal or derogatory nature to the original authors or their colleagues and contributions should adopt a collegial and professional tone. Authors of the article cited in the letter will be invited to reply, and advised on the format required by the Editor. All authors should be given the right to reply. If some authors do not wish to contribute to the reply, this should be stated in the Author Contributions section.
No new data may be introduced into a letter, but may be included in the reply. Letters and replies will be published once copy edited as individual articles and in online issues of Experimental Physiology.
A letter should be submitted online in the Author Area of https://ep.msubmit.net/cgi-bin/main.plex/ as a new manuscript with an article type of 'Letter to the Editor'. It should not exceed 1000 words with a maximum of 5 references, figures should only be used if absolutely necessary and will be included at the discretion of the Senior Editor.
The letter will be forwarded to a member of the Editorial Board for a decision. A Senior Editor may decide not to publish a letter based on lack of scientific relevance or if the subject matter of the letter is too minor to be relevant to the readership at large. Depending upon content, the Senior Editor may also solicit expert reviews. If accepted, a 'Reply' is invited. The Editor reserves the right to publish the letter without a reply.
If authors discover errors in published papers they should contact the Publications Office with the information and if an erratum is considered to be appropriate they will be sent an erratum template and instructions. Once the details have been added they can submit the erratum electronically using the online submission form, as a New Paper through the Author Area, choosing 'Erratum' on the Article Type list. If the correction affects the conclusions of the article it will be sent to a Senior Editor for approval. The convention of Experimental Physiology is to designate author errors as Corrigenda and errors introduced during the publishing process as Errata. The correction will be published in the next possible issue and, in the online version of the journal, linked to the primary article.
Manuscripts must be submitted in fluent English so that the editor and reviewers can properly evaluate your work. If English is not your first language and you are not confident that the scientific message of the paper is absolutely clear, you should seek the assistance of a native English-speaking colleague or use a professional translation or language editing service before submission. Our publisher, Wiley, offers an English Language Editing Service (ELES) for our authors. Please follow the link for more information on the services offered.
English spelling (as in The Chambers Dictionary or the Oxford English Dictionary) and terminology should be used (e.g. colour, fibre, noradrenaline). Clarity of expression and conciseness will be taken into consideration.
Guidelines for writing scientific papers can be found here.
Authors should avoid abbreviations unless they are easily understood and help in reading the paper. Abbreviations should be defined when first introduced and are normally printed in upper-case letters without stops. Abbreviations well known in the field do not need to be defined. Please refer to our list of well-known abbreviations and symbols.
Experimental Physiology requires an alphabetical list of abbreviations to be given after the abstract.
Recommended mathematical symbols and ways of printing them are given in Quantities, Units, and Symbols (1975), published by the Royal Society, London; this also includes a full discussion of the use of units.
Variables are usually a single italic letter. When necessary, symbols are modified with suffixes. These are normally inferiors (subscripts), e.g. Vmax, Em, ICa. (Note that mathematical operators such as d (as in dy/dx) are roman; see below).
Variables and local constants (which, strictly speaking, are variables) are italic, e.g. x (any algebraic expression); R (Boltzmann equation), T (Boltzmann equation), z (Boltzmann equation), k (rate constant), Km (Michaelis-Menten constant).
Suffixes are roman unless referring to a variable, e.g. Xn, for n = 1, 2, 3.
Numbers in chemical formulae which are inferiors should be written as further (double) inferiors, e.g. Po2.
Symbols for vectors and matrices should be bold.
If abbreviations of two or more letters have to be used as a symbol, they are not italicized. If possible, though, use a single letter, especially in equations, e.g. Vh rather than HP for holding potential, VT rather than TV for tidal volume.
The SI system of units and index notation should be used, e.g. ml s-1 rather than ml/s. Guidance for the use of SI units and conventions for the typeface of symbols can also be found at http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/index.html.
Certain traditional units that are still in common usage are also acceptable, for example:
length, Å (SI unit nm)
pressure, mmHg, Torr (SI unit kPa)
radioactivity, Ci = Curie (SI unit Bq)
O2 uptake and CO2 elimination, l min-1 (SI unit mol s-1)
For osmolarity and osmolality use osmol (l solution)-1 and osmol (kg solvent)-1, respectively.
Authors should ensure that consistency is maintained throughout the manuscript, including illustrations and tables.
Particular information about mathematical notation:
Multiplication signs. Avoid using multiplication signs in equations unless needed for clarity e.g. INa = gNa(V - VNa).
They are used in preference to multiplication points or asterisks, and in index notation such as 2 x 10-4.
Multiplication points. These are only used in matrix and vector multiplication. Do not use in units such as N m or Ω cm2.
Mathematical operators, constants and variables. Operators are printed in roman type closed up to the following text, e.g. log[Ca2+], ΔF/F, exp(V - Vm). This also includes the following operators: d (as in dy/dx), and e (as in et - r (same as exp(t - r))).
In general, the conventions in chemical nomenclature adopted by the Biochemical Society should be followed. These are described in the Biochemical Journal's Instructions to Authors.
Names of species and genera should be in italics. Names of muscles, bones etc. should be in roman type (i.e. not in italics).
For names and abbreviations of receptors and channels authors should consult the Guide to Receptors and Channels (GRAC) (5th edn) published in the British Journal of Pharmacology vol. 164, issue s1, pages S1-S324 (November 2011).
High-quality figure files need not be submitted initially; they will be requested if necessary. All figures showing photographs of cells must have scale bars.
Authors submitting a revised potentially acceptable manuscript should submit a separate file for each figure. Our preferred format for Line art is EPS or PDF (600-1000 dpi) and for Images: TIFF, PNG, EPS (300 dpi) but we can work with Powerpoint files too. Files should be no more than 5 MB each, and with all fonts embedded. As papers are published online upon acceptance, it is important that figures are of a suitable quality at this stage.
Each figure should be given a title and be accompanied by a legend that makes it comprehensible without reference to the text, although undue repetition should be avoided.
Authors of revised manuscripts will be required to submit complete, labelled original western blot images (including controls) if they are not included in the manuscript. These should be uploaded as 'Supporting information for review process only'
Authors are encouraged to submit coloured illustrations when they enhance the scientific value of the paper. As Experimental Physiology is an online-only journal, there is no charge for colour figures.
All labelling should be in a sans font (e.g. Arial) such that the final size will be 8pt. A figure must be able to fit on a printed page: page width is 17 cm and page height is 23 cm. The columns of text on the page are 8.4 cm wide and figures that fit within this width are easier to see online and leave less blank space on the page. The same font size and type should be used throughout. There should be no bold or italic fonts unless scientifically necessary. Labels should start with a capital letter and follow with lowercase. Avoid panel headings unless essential for clarification.
Use A, B, etc. for panel labels and a, b, etc. for subpanel labels (not numbers or i, ii, etc.).
Avoid the use of boxes around panels, parts of panels or keys; the top and right borders of graphs should be omitted unless both right and left axes are used within the graph.
Scale bars in photographic panels must be included, with the value added to the figure or to the legend of the figure.
Decimal points should be used and not commas e.g. 0.35 and not 0,35.
Avoid the use of a hyphen rather than a minus sign. For a minus sign, use Alt 0150 on the numeric keypad.
Where figures from previous publications are used (even if these have been redrawn), see Use of previously published material.
When choosing colours for figures, please consider that referees and readers of the journal may be colour blind. No information should be conveyed by colour only. Where this is not possible (e.g. gene expression heat maps), opacity and contrast should be carefully considered. People with colour deficiencies are usually unable to tell the difference between red and green. Some will also struggle to distinguish between blue and green and yellow and red/purple. As such, Experimental Physiology strongly recommends that authors re-colour figures to ensure colours are chosen for their widest accessibility. Accessible colour combinations such as green and magenta or yellow and blue are suggested.
Further recommendations:
For more details on the prevalence of colour blindness, and accessible alternatives to presenting scientific information, please read this article.
Reuse and Manipulation
Authors must not modify images to enhance their data. Authors are required to store original image data for 5 years following publication and to provide these files to The Physiological Society if requested. See our policy on image manipulation for further information.
Authors of potentially acceptable papers are encouraged to submit a figure for possible use on the cover although there is no guarantee that it will be selected. It need not necessarily appear in the paper but should be related to it. The figure must not have appeared or been submitted elsewhere. These should be high resolution TIFF files. They should be included with the revision as clearly labelled 'Cover image art work' and mentioned in the manuscript comments. For help uploading large files please contact the Publications Office.
In order to improve the reporting clarity of methods, data and statistics, and thereby increase reproducibility, Experimental Physiology imposes a strict policy on statistics, data and graphical presentation. Information about the need for this policy can be found here.
The final paragraph of the Methods section should provide full details of the statistical treatment of the manuscript's data.
If n≤30, all data points must be plotted in the figure in a way that reveals their range and distribution. A bar graph with data points overlaid, a box and whisker plot or a violin plot (the latter two also preferably with data points included) are acceptable formats. Note: if each subject has numerous data points associated with it (e.g. time course data), we would treat 'n' as being each data point, not the number of subjects.
If n>30, data points do not need be plotted in the figure but the entire raw dataset must be uploaded either as 'Supporting Information for online publication' (which will be published online with the article) or hosted on a not-for-profit repository e.g. FigShare, with access details provided in the manuscript.
The most appropriate summary statistic (e.g. mean and standard deviation) must be plotted.
Authors should read the Editorials: 'Show the data, don't conceal them' and 'Visualizing data in research articles' for best practice information on how to present data.
Data summaries should be presented as mean (SD) with a clear statement of n; and presented in the main text, figures and their legends and tables. Standard Deviation (SD) without '±' must be used instead of Standard Error of the Mean (SEM). Manuscripts that report only SEM will be returned to authors.
All 'n' values must be clearly stated in the main text, figures (and their legends) and tables with 'n' clearly defined (e.g. x cells from y slices in z animals) in each location. Authors should be mindful of how 'n' is defined to avoid pseudoreplication.
For a given conclusion to be assessed, the exact p values must be stated to three significant figures even when 'no statistical significance' is being reported. These should be stated in the main text, figures and their legends and tables. The only exception to this is if p is less than 0.0001, in which case '<' is permitted. Trend statements are not permitted (i.e. 'x increased, but was not significant'). Where there are many comparisons, a table of p values may be appropriate. Asterisks alone should not be used to denote significance within figures.
Authors are encouraged to upload data files for online publication containing the individual results represented in the published figures or tables as means (SD) or medians (± interquartile range). Please see list of recommended file formats. For numeric data files we recommend Xcel, Access or .CSV formats
Experimental Physiology encourages submission of Supporting information which increases the importance of the research, enhances the understanding of the manuscript and benefits readers. Examples are video and audio files (QuickTime, mpeg, SWF), 3D structures and program codes.
We support publication of data behind the data - see recent articles outlining the benefits of this approach for authors and the research community; 'Publishing the data behind the data' and 'Sharing Detailed Research Data Is Associated with Increased Citation Rate'.
Material such as figures, tables, text (e.g., expanded/detailed methods or results), equations, and other material, if essential for the full understanding of the manuscript must be incorporated into the article itself as part of the text or as standard figures or tables, which should be numbered as such and referenced accordingly in the text. They may NOT be submitted as supporting information for web publication.
All Supporting information should be submitted with your manuscript.
An individual file should be supplied for each piece of information it should contain a legend and be clearly labelled 'Supp data', 'Supp video', 'Supp audio file', or other.
Each file should be clearly referred to by a brief description in the relevant section of the main text or figure legend.
Authors should also add a 'Supporting information' section at the end of their article, that lists and briefly describes each Supporting information file.
An example of how supporting information/files will be displayed can be seen in this manuscript.
Supporting information will be published as submitted and will not be corrected or checked for scientific content, typographical errors or functionality. The responsibility for scientific accuracy and file functionality remains entirely with the authors. Like the manuscript accompanying it, it should be original and not previously published. If published previously it must be submitted with the necessary permissions.
Authors are encouraged to upload their data files to repositories (such as FigShare) as an alternative or addition to publishing it as 'supporting information'. Before uploading data to such repositories, authors should find the 'DOI Link' in their acceptance email and include it in the upload (as a reference) to establish a link from the repository data back to the published article. After uploading data to a repository, authors should send the DOI/url link provided by the repository to the Publications Office. so that it can be included in the final published version of their manuscript. Alternative repositories to FigShare can be found at https://www.re3data.org/ .
If you have any queries regarding supporting information please contact the Publications Office.
In partnership with the non-profit Center for Open Science (COS), Experimental Physiology offers authors Open Science Badges recognizing their adherence to specific open science practices. The following badges are available:
The Open Data Badge recognizes researchers who make their data publicly available, providing sufficient description of the data to allow researchers to reproduce research findings of published research studies. Data must be available on a qualifying public, open-access repository which is committed to preserving data, materials, and/or registered analysis plans and keeping them publicly accessible via the web in perpetuity. Examples include the Open Science Framework (OSF) and the various Dataverse networks (e.g., http://dataverse.org). Hundreds of other qualifying data/material repositories are available through the Registry of Research Data Repositories (http://www.re3data.org). Personal websites and most departmental websites do not qualify as repositories.
The Preregistered Badge recognizes authors of Registered Reports Results manuscripts who have preregistered their research plans with Experimental Physiology via a Registered Reports Protocol (which outlines their research design and data analysis plan prior to engaging in research). The criteria for earning this badge thus includes a date-stamped registration of a study plan in such a venue as the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/) or Clinical Trials (https://clinicaltrials.gov/) database.
Authors will have an opportunity at the time of manuscript submission and at the time of acceptance to declare whether they wish to participate. Applying and qualifying for Open Science badges is not a requirement for publishing with Experimental Physiology, but these badges are a further incentive for authors to participate in the Open Science movement and thus to increase the visibility and transparency of their research. More information about the Open Practices badges is available from the Open Science Framework wiki.
There are circumstances in which it is not possible or advisable to share any or all data. If desired, authors can use the Data Availability Statement to explain such circumstances and/or provide links to any data or materials they have made available, even if not under conditions eligible to earn a badge.
Links to websites may be included in manuscripts, but these links must terminate on a permanent data repository, such as those of the host platforms used by the journals. Links to private author's web pages/sites are not permitted. The text accompanying links should be constructed so that in the event of link failure the text can be used in a search engine to locate the website.
Authors wishing to reproduce material that has already been published must request permission to do so from the relevant journal(s) at the earliest possible stage to avoid publication delays. This includes figures that have been modified. Larger publishers often have a tiered system of processing permission requests. Please indicate that the material will be reproduced in a journal article and that a rapid response is required.
Authors wishing to reproduce material from their own previous publications should consult the original publisher's terms of agreement about copyright ownership and conditions relating to reproducing the material in future publications. Permission is not required to reproduce elsewhere material from authors' own articles that have been published in Experimental Physiology but the source of the material must be acknowledged in the text in the usual way.
It is the author's responsibility to make sure that reproduced material has been acknowledged as requested by the copyright owner. Authors should ensure that the primary source articles are cited in the References section and that appropriate acknowledgement of the primary source journals is given in the text. CrossCheck plagiarism detection software is used to check submitted manuscripts for overlap with previously published material.
Articles containing material that has been previously published cannot be published online or in print if permission documents are not received. Copies of permissions granted to the authors must be uploaded with the submitted manuscript as supplemental files or emailed to the Publications Office as soon as possible.
Authors should also indicate clearly in their covering letter in the online submission form if permission is needed to reproduce any text or figures contained in the article and confirm that this has been received or requested, giving the names of the journals involved and the references to the articles. PDFs of all relevant articles should also be uploaded with the submission, as supplemental files.
Authors wishing to reproduce text or figures that have already been published must seek permission from the copyright holder as soon as possible, and copies of permissions granted should be forwarded to the journal. If accepted, the manuscript will not be published until the permissions are received. It is the responsibility of the author(s) to gain required permission prior to publication in Experimental Physiology. Further guidance is available on our Permissions page.
Authors are required to sign an appropriate license agreement once their article has been accepted. Please contact the Publications Office should you have any queries.
The date of receipt of each paper will be published on the accepted paper and is normally the date on which the manuscript is first received in the Publications Office. Papers submitted without all the information specified in these instructions will not be given editorial consideration until it has been provided; this applies especially to aspects of animal welfare/ethics. The date of receipt published will then refer to the date when the complete submission was received. If an author fails to deal with requested revisions within a reasonable time (usually one month) the date of original receipt will be replaced by the date on which the new version was received in the Publications Office.
A video abstract can be a quick way to make the message of your research accessible to a much larger audience. Wiley and its partner Research Square offer a service of professionally produced video abstracts, available to authors of articles accepted in this journal. You can learn more about it here. If you have any questions, please direct them to videoabstracts@wiley.com.
Proofs should be corrected and returned promptly since publication is in order of receipt of corrected proofs. Excessive alterations by the authors of the accepted copy may be subject to further editorial consideration and may be charged to the authors.
Authors may make copies of their own papers published in Experimental Physiology, provided that such copies are for free distribution only; they must not be sold. Authors may re-use their own illustrations in other publications appearing under their own name, without seeking permission, provided that the source of the material is properly acknowledged. Permission to reproduce material from Experimental Physiology, either in the journal or in other publications, will not generally be given to third parties except with the consent of the authors concerned.
Specific permission will not be required for photocopying copyright material in the following circumstances:
More information regarding the reproduction of copyright material can be found on the authors Exclusive Licence to Publish form or by consulting our Permissions page.
