Therapeutic advances in neurological disorders [Neurosurgery Wiki]

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====== Therapeutic advances in neurological disorders ======

Title: Therapeutic Advances in Neurological Disorders
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISSN: 1756-2856
Type: Open Access, peer-reviewed
Indexing: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science (SCIE)
Impact Factor (2024): ~5.0 (approximate, check most recent JCR for updates)

🎯 Scope and Aims
The journal focuses on publishing clinical and translational research in neurology, with particular emphasis on therapeutic interventions across a broad range of neurological conditions — from multiple sclerosis and epilepsy to neuro-oncology and stroke.

Strength: It aims to provide practical, patient-centered insights and often features early-phase trials and real-world evidence that may not yet meet the threshold for higher-impact neurology journals.

🧠 Strengths
Open Access: Promotes wide visibility and accessibility, allowing clinicians, researchers, and even patients to engage with content without paywalls.

Speed of Publication: Offers relatively fast peer review and publication timelines, which is valuable for emerging therapies and COVID-era clinical updates.

Clinically Oriented Focus: TAND often publishes reviews, observational studies, and case-based insights that are useful for practicing neurologists.

Inclusive of Underrepresented Topics: Willing to publish on neglected diseases, rare disorders, and therapies not well covered in journals like Brain, Neurology, or Lancet Neurology.

⚠️ Weaknesses
Editorial Rigor and Selectivity

The bar for methodological robustness is often lower than top-tier journals. Many papers lack pre-registration, randomization, or detailed statistical validation.

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses with retrospective studies are frequently published without sufficient scrutiny, leading to overinterpretation of low-level evidence.

Overreliance on Observational Data

Many articles present associative findings as causal conclusions. There's an editorial tendency to favor narrative impact over methodological conservatism.

Impact Factor Inflation via Reviews

A disproportionate number of narrative reviews and opinion pieces boosts citations but dilutes the originality and scientific rigor of the content.

Predatory Publishing Risk Perception

Despite being a legitimate journal under SAGE, some clinicians confuse TAND with lower-tier or predatory journals because of its high volume of non-randomized, industry-sponsored studies.

🧮 Relevance for Neuro-Oncology and Neurosurgery
Useful for hypothesis generation, safety studies, and real-world data.

Not a go-to journal for definitive evidence or practice-changing trials in neurosurgical fields.

May serve as a stepping stone for early-career researchers or for topics too narrow for higher-impact venues.

⚖️ Verdict
TAND occupies a niche between rigorously selective journals and volume-driven open-access platforms. It offers speed and visibility, but at the cost of editorial depth and scientific conservatism. For clinicians, it can be a source of early signals, not final answers. For researchers, it is a viable target — provided the work is clinically framed, clearly written, and acknowledges its evidentiary limitations.