About the Journal

A peer-reviewed quarterly medical journal, Astrocyte is an official publication of the National Board of Examinations. The journal’s full text is accessible online at http://www.astrocyte.in. Besides the online edition, Astrocyte is also published in print every quarter. As a policy, the journal allows free access (open access) to its contents and permits authors to self-archive final accepted version of the articles on any OAI-compliant institutional / subject-based repository. The journal does not charge for submission, processing or publication of manuscripts. Nor are charges levied for color reproduction of photographs 

Abstracting and Indexing Information

The journal is registered with the following abstracting partners:
Baidu Scholar, CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), EBSCO Publishing's Electronic Databases, Ex Libris – Primo Central, Google Scholar, Hinari, Infotrieve, National Science Library, ProQuest, TDNet, Wanfang Data

The journal is indexed with, or included in, the following:
Index Copernicus

Journal Ethics

Wolters Kluwer and Journal/Association are committed to meeting and upholding standards of ethical behavior at all stages of the publication process. We follow closely the industry associations, such as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), that set standards and provide guidelines for best practices in order to meet these requirements. For a summary of our specific policies regarding duplicate publication, conflicts of interest, patient consent, etc., please visit www.Medknow.com/EthicalGuidelines.asp

Open Access Publication and Creative Commons Licensing

This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.

Digital Archiving

Wolters Kluwer Medknow provides for long-term digital preservation through two primary partnerships, Portico and CLOCKSS.

Portico is a leading digital preservation service worldwide. The content is preserved as an archival version and is not publically accessible via Portico, but is provided when required under specific conditions, such as discontinuation of the collection or catastrophic failure of the website.

CLOCKSS will enable any library to maintain their own archive of content from Wolters Kluwer Medknow and other publishers, with minimal technical effort and using cheaply available hardware.

Ahead of Print policy

Articles published online under the Ahead of Print model are considered published and can be cited and quoted using the DOI as the reference source. Wolters Kluwer Medknow has a policy that changes will not be made after publication of an article without following accepted procedures for making corrections to the scientific record.

Advertisements

While advertisements are crucial to this journal to be able to keep all content free for everyone, ethical considerations are in place to ensure the integrity of the journal and its content:

• "Pop-up" and "banner" ads appear on a random, rotating basis. The advertiser has no control or input over the pages where their ads appear.
• The Editorial Board has full and final approval over the content of all advertisements.
• Advertisers will never be shown any manuscripts or other content prior to publication.

Astrocyte is an independent and authoritative window to evolving medical thought and research in diverse disciplines of medicine. It publishes research; practice changing updates; reflections, scrutiny, and constructive debates; and crystal ball gazing in global medicine. The mission is to instil knowledge, inspire introspection and ignite human minds in pursuit of clinical excellence

1. Original Contributions:
   1. The Original articles are self-conducted novel research and investigations conducted in the group and collaborations of the first and the corresponding authors.
   2. The original articles can be of the following categories:
      1. Clinical Investigations or Academic Research having strong clinical implications.
      2. Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) and Intervention trials.
      3. Studies of Screening and Diagnostic test.
      4. Surveys with high response rate.
   3. The text of Original articles should preferably be amounting to approximately 3500 words (excluding Abstract, References and Tables)
   4. The text should be divided into sections of Abstract, Key-words, Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion and References with tables and figure legends.
   5. The manuscript should have an Abstract (300 words) representing an accurate summary of the article.
   6. The Original articles may have up to 10 illustrations and not more than 50 references.


2. Practice Changing\Continuing Education\Review Articles:
   1. It is expected that these articles would be written by individuals who have done substantial work on the subject or are considered experts in the field.
   2. A short summary of the work done by the contributor(s) in the field of review should accompany the manuscript.
   3. The word count is preferably up to 3600 words excluding Tables, References and Abstract.
   4. The manuscript should have preferably 4-5 illustrations and about 50-60 References.
   5. The manuscript should have an Abstract (360 words) representing an accurate summary of the article.
   6. The section titles would depend upon the topic reviewed.


3. Special Reports:
   1. Case series\experiences which bring to the fore a new thought process, recent advances or challenges in a specific condition, disorder or sub-specialty may be presented as special reports.
   2. They should provide a learning point for the readers and be unique in nature.
   3. Only those case series which carry strong clinical significance or implication shall be considered.
   4. These communications should be limited preferably to 3000 words (excluding Abstract and References) and should have the following headings: Abstract (unstructured), Key-words, Introduction, and Point of Report, Discussion, Reference, Tables and Legends in that order.
   5. The manuscript should preferably be having 3 or more live images and up to 12 references.
   6. The article should preferably have strong medical statistics, which are presented in a tabular form.
   7. These reports could be authored by up to three authors.


4. Pictorial Essay:
   • The essay should aim to provide both textual and visual portrayals of a topical issue.
   • It should consist of a short unstructured abstract, brief introduction, subheadings to organize the material and a summary.
   • The number of references is preferably up to 12.
   • The text should approximately be having 1000-2000 words in length, with much of the message contained in the figure legends.
   • The article should allow for a large number of figures, typically up to 20 figures or 30 figure parts.


5. Chronicles of Medicine:
   • A chronicle is an extended account in prose of historical events, sometimes including legendary material, presented in chronological order and without authorial interpretation or comment. In medicine, a recount of such historic events promotes greater understanding of milestone developments in a particular field and may motivate new experiments and charting of unmapped waters. The number of references is preferably restricted to 10.


6. Debates:
   • Debates should present an argument that is not essentially based on practical research.
   • They can report on all aspects of the subject including sociological and ethical aspects.


7. Crystal ball
   • In clinical parlance, crystal ball essays are those which portend the future, and are based on recent advances and predictions.
   • The text should be up to 3000 words excluding tables, references and abstract. The manuscript should have an abstract (360 words) representing an accurate summary of the article. The manuscript may have 4-5 illustrations and up to 20-30 references.


8. Medicine and Society (Ethics):
   • This is an interdisciplinary forum which delves into the diverse realms of medical science and their relationship with the human society.
   • The articles may range from broad theoretical, philosophical and policy explorations, to detailed case studies of particular intellectual and practical activities at the intersection of medical science and society.


9. Letter to Editor:
   • These should be short and decisive observations.
   • They should preferably be related to articles previously published in the journal or views expressed in the journal.
   • They should not be preliminary observations that need a later paper for validation. The letter could have up to 600 words with preferably 5-6 References.
   • It should be preferably be authored by not more than two authors.


10. Editorials:
    Editorial, Guest Editorial, Commentary and Opinion are solicited by the editorial board.


11. Book Reviews:

    Standard Book Reviews should be no longer than 2000 words although depending on the book being reviewed they may be shorter or long, book reviewers should discuss the length of the review with the General Editor before writing. All book reviews should be prepared and submitted following the general Guidelines to Authors of this journal.

    The following information should be given about the book being reviewed at the start of each review:

    • Author / Editor Name, Book Title, Publisher, Year of Publication, ISBN: 000-0-00-000000-0, number of Pages, Price.
    • The intended audience for the book and who would find it useful.
    • The main ideas and major objectives of the book and how effectively these are accomplished.
    • The soundness of methods and information sources used.
    • The context or impetus for the book - political controversy, review research or policy etc.
    • Constructive comments about the strength and weaknesses of the book.

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