Acta Neurologica Scandinavica

About Acta Neurologica Scandinavica

Overview

Acta Neurologica Scandinavica (Acta Neurol. Scand.) is a peer-reviewed medical journal specializing in neurology, published by Wiley-Blackwell in the United Kingdom. Established in 1925, it is one of the oldest neurology journals in the world and serves as an international forum for original clinical, diagnostic, and experimental work in neuroscience, with a distinguished century-long publishing record. The journal is the official scientific organ of the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish neurological societies, giving it a distinctive Scandinavian institutional identity within the global neurology literature.

The journal's scope is deliberately broad within neurology: it publishes manuscripts representing original clinical, diagnostic, or experimental work, with the stated aim of acting as an international forum for the dissemination of information advancing the science or practice of the subject area. Papers are published in English, and the journal explicitly welcomes contributions that bring new knowledge and observations from the application of therapies or techniques in combating a broad spectrum of neurological disease and neurodegenerative disorders.

Publication Identity and Bibliographic Details

• Print ISSN: 0001-6314
• Electronic ISSN: 1600-0404
• CODEN: ANRSAS
• ISO 4 abbreviation: Acta Neurol. Scand.
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell (United Kingdom); publisher location also recorded as Copenhagen, Denmark in some directories
• Frequency: Monthly
• Founding: 1925 (history recorded as 1925–present; Scopus coverage from 1961 in aggregator records)
• Language: English (originally published in the Scandinavian languages; switched to English in the 1960s)
• Journal website: onlinelibrary.wiley.com (Wiley Online Library, loi/16000404)
• Predecessor title: Acta Psychiatrica et Neurologica Scandinavica

Affiliated Societies

The journal is the official journal of three Scandinavian national neurological societies:

1. Danish Neurological Society
2. Norwegian Neurological Society
3. Swedish Neurological Society

This tri-national ownership reflects the journal's origins as a shared Scandinavian enterprise. Like its Belgian counterpart, it functions partly as the documentary record of its societies' scientific life, while operating as a fully international journal open to authors worldwide.

Aims and Scope

The journal's aims statement, widely reproduced in directory records, reads in substance: Acta Neurologica Scandinavica aims to publish manuscripts of a high scientific quality representing original clinical, diagnostic or experimental work in neuroscience. The journal's scope is to act as an international forum for the dissemination of information advancing the science or practice of this subject area.

Specific scope notes:

• Papers in English are welcomed, especially those bringing new knowledge and observations from the application of therapies or techniques against a broad spectrum of neurological disease and neurodegenerative disorders.
• Relevant articles on the basic neurosciences are published where they extend present understanding of neurological disorders.
• Priority is given to reviews of topical subjects.
• Papers requiring rapid publication because of their significance and timeliness are included as "Clinical commentaries" not exceeding two printed pages.
• Debate within the specialty is encouraged through "Letters to the editor."
• All submitted manuscripts within the overall scope are assessed by suitably qualified referees.

Article Types

• Original articles — full-length clinical, diagnostic, and experimental research papers
• Review articles — topical reviews, given priority by the editors
• Clinical commentaries — rapid-publication short pieces (max two printed pages) for significant and timely findings or matters of sufficient general interest
• Case reports — clinical cases of neurological interest
• Letters to the editor — debate and correspondence

History

The journal was first published in 1925, making it one of the oldest neurology journals in existence. It began life publishing in the Scandinavian languages — a natural choice for a journal owned by Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish societies. In the 1960s, as English consolidated its position as the lingua franca of science, the journal switched to English to reach a wider international audience. That transition was pivotal: it converted a regional Scandinavian periodical into an international journal while retaining its Scandinavian institutional identity.

The predecessor title, Acta Psychiatrica et Neurologica Scandinavica, records an earlier era when psychiatry and neurology shared a single Scandinavian journal — a common pattern in early twentieth-century European medical publishing. The split into separate neurological and psychiatric titles mirrored the two specialties' divergence.

Under Wiley-Blackwell's publication, the journal has maintained monthly frequency and a steady position in the citation rankings of clinical neurology, with a 2021 impact factor of 3.915 per the Journal Citation Reports.

Editorial Leadership

Wikipedia's article (citing the journal's editorial board page, retrieved 2022) names Elinor Ben-Menachem as editor-in-chief. A tertiary encyclopedia source (WikiMD) instead names Professor Per Soelberg Sørensen of the University of Copenhagen as the current editor-in-chief. This discrepancy may reflect a recent transition or a stale record; readers should consult the live Wiley editorial-board page for the current appointment. The board is described as comprising neurologists from the Scandinavian countries alongside international members.

The 1960s Language Transition

One of the most consequential decisions in the journal's history was the switch from the Scandinavian languages to English in the 1960s. For its first four decades the journal published in Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish — serving its societies' members directly but limiting its readership to Scandinavia. The move to English was part of a broader post-war transformation of scientific publishing, in which English displaced French and German (and smaller national languages) as the medium of international science.

The transition worked. Where the Scandinavian-language journal had been a regional periodical, the English-language Acta Neurologica Scandinavica became an international title indexed in the Science Citation Index and read worldwide — while retaining its Scandinavian ownership and editorial character. It is a case study in how a national-society journal can internationalize without losing its institutional identity: the societies still own it, Scandinavian neurologists still fill its board, but its authors and readers are global.

The Psychiatry–Neurology Split

The predecessor title, Acta Psychiatrica et Neurologica Scandinavica, belongs to an era when Scandinavian psychiatry and neurology published together. The eventual separation into distinct neurological and psychiatric journals mirrored a Europe-wide disciplinary divergence: as both fields grew — neurology with its expanding diagnostic technology, psychiatry with its own therapeutic revolutions — a shared journal could no longer serve either adequately. The "Acta" naming convention, common to many Scandinavian society journals of the period (Acta Medica Scandinavica, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, Acta Paediatrica), marks the journal as a product of the Scandinavian learned-society publishing tradition.

Monthly Publication and Volume

The journal publishes monthly — twelve issues per year — a relatively high frequency for a specialty neurology journal. Aggregator records put total published documents at roughly 3,763, with Scopus coverage from 1961. Monthly publication supports the journal's rapid-publication track: "Clinical commentaries" of two printed pages or fewer can move significant, timely findings into print quickly, a mechanism the editors explicitly maintain for work whose significance demands speed.

Year-by-Year Metric Snapshots

Impact-factor figures from the cited sources show the journal's recent trajectory (all attributed):

• 2019: 2.491 (per WikiMD, citing JCR)
• 2020: 3.209 (per journalsmedicine); 2.396-adjacent Belgian comparison aside, the Scandinavian title's 2020 figure is independently recorded
• 2021: 3.915 (per Wikipedia, citing JCR) — the recent peak
• 2024: 2.90 (per jrank); 5-year JIF 3.00
• Impact score (Scopus-based): 3.12 (2022–23, researchbite); 2.94 (resurchify)

The pattern — a rise to nearly 4 in 2021 followed by moderation to around 2.9 — mirrors the pandemic-era citation inflation and subsequent normalization seen across clinical journals, and should not be over-interpreted. The journal's quartile placement has remained strong: Q1 in Medicine (miscellaneous) and Q2 in Neurology/Clinical Neurology in the 2023 category quartiles.

Peer Review Process

All submitted manuscripts falling within the journal's scope are assessed by suitably qualified referees — the journal's standard statement of its peer-review commitment. As a Wiley journal, submissions pass through editorial triage (via the Wiley submission system) followed by external expert review. The journal's provision for "Clinical commentaries" of no more than two printed pages creates an explicit rapid-publication track for findings of unusual significance and timeliness. Review-model specifics (single- versus double-anonymous), reviewer counts, and current turnaround statistics are not stated in the public sources consulted and are left blank here rather than asserted.

Abstracting and Indexing

The journal is indexed in:

• Science Citation Index Expanded (Clarivate)
• MEDLINE / PubMed
• Scopus (coverage recorded 1961–2024 in aggregator records)
• Embase
• EBSCO
• BIOSIS

Impact Metrics

Metric figures below are attributed per source and year; they are not asserted as current official values. Readers should verify against the live Journal Citation Reports and Scopus:

• Journal Impact Factor: 3.915 (2021, per Wikipedia citing JCR); 3.209 (2020, per journalsmedicine); 2.90 (2024, per jrank); impact score 2.94 (per resurchify, Scopus-based)
• 5-year JIF: 3.00 (per jrank, 2024 metrics)
• SJR: 0.865–0.947 (per researchbite/resurchify snapshots); 0.90 (2024, per jrank)
• h-index: 106–114 (per researchbite/resurchify/jrank snapshots)
• Quartile: Q1 in Medicine (miscellaneous), Q2 in Neurology and Clinical Neurology (per jrank 2023 category quartiles); Scopus rank #86 of 400 in Clinical Neurology (per jrank)
• Cites/Document (2 years): 2.63–2.73 (per jrank)
• Total documents: ~3,763 (per jrank)

Publication Ethics

The journal operates under Wiley's publication-ethics framework, aligned with COPE standards: requirements cover authorship, competing-interest disclosure, research involving human participants and animals, informed consent, data availability, and plagiarism screening. Submissions are subject to the publisher's standard integrity checks.

Open Access Policy

Acta Neurologica Scandinavica is a subscription journal with hybrid open-access options through Wiley's OnlineOpen program, allowing authors to make individual articles freely available on payment of an article publication charge. Standard Wiley self-archiving (green open access) terms apply to accepted manuscripts. Current APC figures and self-archiving embargoes are published on the Wiley journal page and are not reproduced here, as they are updated periodically.

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts are submitted through Wiley's online submission system (linked from the journal's Wiley Online Library page). The journal welcomes original clinical, diagnostic, and experimental work in English. Authors considering the rapid "Clinical commentaries" track should note the strict two-printed-page limit. Author instructions — covering manuscript structure, reference style (Wiley's standard), figure preparation, and ethical declarations — are maintained on the Wiley journal page; authors should consult the live version for current requirements. As with all Wiley journals, authors will be asked to confirm originality, disclose competing interests, and document ethical approvals for human and animal research at submission.

Readership and Standing

The journal's readership is recorded in directories as neurologists and neuroscientists. Its standing — a 2021 impact factor near 4, Q1/Q2 placement, and an h-index above 100 — reflects a century of continuous publication and the successful 1960s transition to English. Tertiary descriptions call it "prestigious" and "esteemed for its rigorous peer-review process and high-quality publications," noting its value to researchers, professionals, and students following developments in neurological disorders and treatments.

Scandinavian Neurology and the Journal's Institutional Role

The three owner societies — Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish — represent some of the world's most research-intensive neurology communities relative to population. Scandinavia's national health registries, population-based cohorts, and strong traditions in epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, stroke, and neurodegenerative-disease research give the region an outsized footprint in neurology. The journal is the societies' shared flagship: it publishes their members' work, carries the field's debates, and projects Scandinavian neurology internationally.

That institutional role shapes editorial priorities. The scope's emphasis on "the application of therapies or techniques in the combating of a broad spectrum of neurological disease" and the explicit welcome for basic-neuroscience papers that "extend present understanding of such disorders" reflect a clinically anchored, translationally minded editorial philosophy — the journal wants work that moves the field, not work that merely accumulates.

The Wiley Platform

On Wiley Online Library the journal sits within Wiley's clinical-medicine portfolio (identified by the eISSN-based path loi/16000404). Wiley provides the submission system, production, distribution, and the OnlineOpen hybrid-OA program. For authors, the practical consequence is a standardized Wiley workflow: online submission, automated technical checks, and the publisher's standard production pipeline. For readers and librarians, it means the journal is bundled in Wiley's institutional packages and discoverable through the publisher's standard metadata feeds to PubMed, Scopus, and discovery services.

For Librarians and Indexers

Cataloguers should note the following authority-control details: the authorized title is Acta Neurologica Scandinavica; the ISO 4 abbreviation is Acta Neurol. Scand.; CODEN ANRSAS; OCLC number 183337241 (directory record); LCCN 89656036; US NLM ID 0370336. The predecessor title Acta Psychiatrica et Neurologica Scandinavica should be linked as the earlier title. The publisher of record is Wiley-Blackwell (United Kingdom), though some directories record Copenhagen, Denmark as the publisher location — a reflection of the societies' base. Language of publication is English throughout the current run; earlier volumes (1925–1960s) are in Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, which matters for retrospective cataloguing and digitization projects.

What the Journal Actually Publishes: Subject Emphasis

While the formal scope is broad — "original clinical, diagnostic or experimental work in neuroscience" — the journal's century-long run and Scandinavian base give it recognizable emphases. Epilepsy has deep roots here (the editor-in-chief named in recent records, Elinor Ben-Menachem, is an epileptologist), as do multiple sclerosis, stroke and cerebrovascular disease, movement disorders, and neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Neuroimaging, neurophysiology, and neuropathology appear regularly, consistent with the diagnostic strand of the scope. The "basic neurosciences" the journal accepts are those that extend understanding of neurological disorders — translational relevance is the filter, not methodological purity.

The topical-review priority means the journal regularly carries commissioned or invited syntheses on fast-moving areas, and the Clinical commentaries track gives it a mechanism for rapid communication that many monthly journals lack. Letters to the editor keep debate visible — an editorial value the aims statement calls out explicitly.

Citation and Discovery

For authors citing the journal, the ISO 4 abbreviation Acta Neurol. Scand. should be used in reference lists. The journal's century-long run means citations span from 1925 to the present; databases index the current title under ISSN 0001-6314 (print) and 1600-0404 (electronic), with earlier material under the predecessor Acta Psychiatrica et Neurologica Scandinavica. Researchers working with the pre-1960s volumes should note that those articles are in Danish, Norwegian, or Swedish rather than English. The journal's "Clinical commentaries" — short rapid-publication pieces — are fully citable items and are indexed alongside full articles.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Acta Neurologica Scandinavica?

A monthly, peer-reviewed neurology journal published by Wiley-Blackwell, founded in 1925, and serving as the official journal of the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish neurological societies.

What are the journal's ISSNs?

Print ISSN 0001-6314 and electronic ISSN 1600-0404, with CODEN ANRSAS.

Who is the editor-in-chief?

Elinor Ben-Menachem is named by Wikipedia (citing the journal's board page, 2022); one tertiary source names Per Soelberg Sørensen (University of Copenhagen). Check the live Wiley masthead for the current appointment.

What is the impact factor?

Reported figures include 3.915 (2021, JCR), 3.209 (2020), and 2.90 (2024, jrank). Verify against the live Journal Citation Reports.

Is the journal indexed in PubMed?

Yes — MEDLINE/PubMed, Scopus, Science Citation Index Expanded, Embase, EBSCO, and BIOSIS.

What is a "Clinical commentary"?

A rapid-publication article type for significant, timely findings (or matters of broad general interest), limited to two printed pages.

How does this journal differ from Acta Neurologica Belgica?

The Scandinavian title (Wiley, ISSN 0001-6314, monthly, founded 1925, English since the 1960s) is distinct from the Belgian title (Springer, ISSN 0300-9009, quarterly, founded 1901, French heritage). Use the ISO 4 abbreviations — Acta Neurol. Scand. vs Acta Neurol. Belg. — to disambiguate.

How long has the journal been published in English?

Since the 1960s. Before that it published in the Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish).

What was the journal called before?

Its predecessor was Acta Psychiatrica et Neurologica Scandinavica, reflecting the earlier joint publication of psychiatry and neurology in Scandinavia.

Is the journal affiliated with any societies?

Yes — it is the official journal of the Danish Neurological Society, the Norwegian Neurological Society, and the Swedish Neurological Society, the three national societies that have owned it since its Scandinavian origins.

Where do I submit?

Through Wiley's online submission system, linked from the journal's Wiley Online Library page (onlinelibrary.wiley.com).