The Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research had the PRINT ISSN-0100-879X from 1981 to 1997.

After 1997, the ISSN of the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research was modified to ISSN-1414-431X because it became an Electronic Journal.

The Journal is published only in electronic version and is an open-access, anonymous peer-reviewed journal published by the Associação Brasileira de Divulgação Científica (ABDC), which is a Federation of Brazilian Scientific Societies (SBBf, SBFTE, SBFis, SBI, SBIC, SBNeC, SBBq, SBBC). The ABDC is a nonprofit organization of scientists committed to making the world’s scientific and medical literature a public resource.

The Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research is edited at the Campus of Ribeirão Preto, School of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil.

The publication of the Journal was partially financed for a few years by CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico), MCT (Ministério da Ciência e Tecnologia), CAPES (Coordenação de Pessoal de Nivel Superior), ME (Ministério de Educação), and FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo).

The articles of the Journal are published online, continuously. All research articles published by the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research since 1997 are available at www.scielo.br/bjmbr and www.bjournal.org. The Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research articles are tracked by PubMed, PubMed Central, ISI Knowledge, and Scopus.

The Journal is indexed by all major indexing services, including Web of Knowledge and PubMed. The Journal applies the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) to all works published.

Under the CC BY, authors retain ownership of the copyright for theirarticle, but authors allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy articles in the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.

BJMBR follows the Gold Open Access model.

BJMBR undergoes a rigorous peer-review process, and adheres to the principles of Open Science. This commitment is reflected in our editorial policy, which promotes transparency and free access to knowledge. We adopt practices such as providing open access to all articles, ensuring that discoveries and innovations are accessible to researchers, clinicians, and the general public without barriers.

BJMBR adopts several measures, to uphold integrity and transparency, including a code of good practices for authors, reviewers, and editors, as well as an open access policy. Additionally, it requires the precise attribution of author roles in multi-authored articles and encourages the sharing of datasets and supplementary materials.

BJMBR maintains a steadfast commitment to upholding good practices and ethics in scientific publishing. All submitted papers are expected to adhere to high ethical standards, encompassing accuracy in data, transparency in authorship, and full disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. The integrity of research is fundamental to us, and any form of misconduct, such as plagiarism, will be treated seriously by the journal's editorial board.

Adherence to COPE Guidelines: BJMBR adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines, ensuring that we maintain international standards in addressing ethical issues in publishing. This includes, but is not limited to, guidelines on authorship, conflicts of interest, privacy, consent, and standards for dealing with potential instances of publishing misconduct.

BJMBR is committed to sharing original and innovative research. Our goal is to publish articles that significantly contribute to the advancement of science and its related areas. This includes, but is not limited to, clinical and experimental studies, new techniques, literature reviews, and discussions on ethical aspects of science.

This journal follows the standards defined in the SciELO Program's Digital Preservation Policy.

• Web of Sciences
• PubMed
• SciELO
• DOAJ
• Scopus
• OpenAlex
• Latindex
• MEDLINE
• BIOSIS/Biological Abstracts
• Excerpta Medica/EMBASE
• LILACS
• Scimago Journal & Country Rank

• Title: Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research
• Abbreviation: Braz J Med Biol Res
• Published by: Associação Brasileira de Divulgação Científica
• Frequency: annual
• Publishing mode: rolling publishing
• Year of journal creation: 1981

BJMBR recognizes the importance of new scientific mediums and enables readers and researchers to have faster access to recent research findings prior to its publication. Therefore, BJMBR welcomes manuscripts that have been deposited on non-commercial preprint servers.

A preprint is a preliminary version of a scientific work that is publicly shared in online repositories before undergoing peer review and eventual publication in a scientific journal. It is a way to accelerate the process of scientific communication, enabling researchers to promptly share their findings with the academic community. Preprints can be found in public repositories such as bioRxiv and medRxiv, dedicated to biology and medicine publications, respectively. These repositories, maintained by non-profit organizations, provide free access to the public for reading and downloading purposes.

To ensure transparency and integrity in handling preprints submitted to BJMBR, authors are encouraged to provide the following information:

• Preprint Identification: Authors must provide information about the preprint, including its title, authors, repository name where it was published, publication date and DOI.
• Relationship with the Submitted Work: Authors should clarify the connection between the preprint and the work submitted to the journal, for example, if the preprint is an earlier version or if it contains complementary information.
• Conflicts of Interest: Authors should disclose any conflicts of interest related to the preprint, such as funding from a company or institution with an interest in the work.

BJMBR adopts a double-anonymous peer review process to ensure an unbiased judgment and the quality of published articles. The process includes the following steps:

• Standards Compliance: The Editorial Assistant verifies if the manuscript adheres to the Instructions to Authors. Otherwise, the manuscript is returned to the authors for adjustments. Once the requirements are met, the manuscript proceeds to the Editor-in-Chief.
• Editor-in-Chief Review: The Editor-in-Chief evaluates the manuscript and, if deemed appropriate, assigns a Section Editor, who selects expert reviewers for further assessment.
• Initial Evaluation by the Editor: After submission, the Section Editor assesses whether the manuscript complies with the journal’s scope and quality standards. Manuscripts failing to meet these criteria are rejected at this stage.
• Reviewer Opinions: Reviewers evaluate the manuscript anonymously and submit their opinions through the ScholarOne system. Based on these opinions, the Section Editor makes a recommendation, and sends it to the authors with Minor or Extensive revision. When the author returns the revised version, the Section Editor sends it again to the reviewers. When the Section Editor recommends acceptance or rejection, this is forwarded to the Editor-in-Chief.
• Final Decision: The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision on the manuscript, which can be accepted or rejected. This decision is communicated to the authors.

Although BJMBR follows the double-anonymized peer review process for manuscripts submitted to the journal, this process cannot be implemented for preprints due to the known identities of authors and reviewers. However, BJMBR adopts the peer review process with unique anonymization for preprints, in which the reviewers are aware of the preprint authors, but not vice versa.

BJMBR is committed to the Guide to promoting the opening, transparency and reproducibility of research published by SciELO journals (TOP Guidelines), aiming to improve the quality and transparency of published research. These guidelines emphasize the importance of clarity in the evidence supporting study conclusions.

To align with these principles, BJMBR requests that all datasets associated with submitted manuscripts be accompanied by the Open Science Compliance Form. This form must be completed in detail by the authors, highlighting how the research adheres to Open Science standards, and submitted as a Supplemental File with the manuscript.

This practice ensures that all relevant data is available for review and analysis, contributing to the integrity and reproducibility of scientific research. Adherence to these guidelines reinforces BJMBR's commitment to transparency and excellence in scientific publishing.

Clinical Trial Data: For manuscripts reporting clinical trial data, BJMBR adopts the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on the sharing of such data. Data availability statements should be clear and detailed, including the following information:

•  Data Availability with Controlled Access:
  • The statement should explain the reasons for controlled access, such as privacy issues or ethical and legal considerations.
  • Access conditions must be accurately described, including contact information for access requests and deadlines for response.
  • Any restrictions on data usage, such as data use agreements, must be clearly indicated. A copy or link to the data use agreement must be available if requested by the editors.
  • Restrictions on data reuse or authorship requirements must be explicitly described in the manuscript and communicated to the editors at the time of submission.
  • Editors retain the right to refuse manuscript consideration if data access restrictions are excessively restrictive.

•  Third Party Data:
  • Where data obtained from third parties cannot be shared, specific restrictions should be clearly stated in the data availability statement.
  • Authors must make data available for peer review, if requested, respecting the terms of any data use agreement and in compliance with ethical and legal requirements.

• Citation Standards: All data, program codes, and methods must be appropriately cited using DOIs, journal citations or other persistent identifiers. Exceptional situations that require different treatment, such as confidential information under non-disclosure agreements, must be communicated to the editor up to the manuscript review stage and clearly mentioned in the Acknowledgements (see Citations and References).
• Data Standards: All data used must be accessible to any researcher for the purpose of reproducing or expanding the analysis. Data should either be included in the article or deposited in specialized community repositories or general-purpose repositories. Some examples include  Dryad, Figshare, Zenodo, Mendeley Data, OSF, and the SciELO Data repository. Special situations, such as privacy protection or the acquisition of data from third parties, should be discussed with the editor as early as possible and clearly indicated in the Acknowledgments.
• Transparency in Analytical Methods (Code): The Methods section should provide sufficient detail to allow study replication. Materials or samples used in the analysis must be available to any researcher for direct replication. Any restrictions on material availability, as well as Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs), must be disclosed to the editor until the manuscript review stage and specified in the Acknowledgments.

The authors are responsible for the “publication fee” of all accepted papers. The publication fee will be billed to the Corresponding Author when the paper is accepted.

The charge is R$4.000,00/paper for Brazilian authors and US$1,800.00/paper for authors outside Brazil and is independent of the length of the paper.

Please contact Reinaldo de Souza (reinaldo.souza@bjournal.com.br) if you have any questions.

BJMBR strictly adheres to ethical publication guidelines and actively combats scientific misconduct. Any cases of plagiarism, data falsification, duplicate publications, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or other forms of scientific misconduct, once identified, will be addressed seriously by the Editorial Board. The journal reserves the right to take appropriate actions, which may include rejection of the manuscript, prohibition of future submissions from the authors involved, and communication of infractions to affiliated institutions.

• Erratum: BJMBR recognizes the importance of rectifying any errors that may arise following the publication of an article. If a significant error is identified, authors must inform the journal immediately. An erratum will be published as soon as possible to detail the corrections and ensure the accuracy and completeness of the scientific record.
• Plagiarism and Self-Plagiarism (Text Recycling): BJMBR strictly prohibits plagiarism and self-plagiarism. Self-plagiarism refers to the reuse of significant parts of an author's own previously published work without proper citation. Manuscripts found to engage in text recycling will be rejected, and authors may face sanctions from the Editorial Board.
• Duplicate and Redundant Publication: BJMBR publishes only original content. It is strictly prohibited to simultaneously submit a study to multiple journals or to divide the results of a study into several articles (known as salami publication). Violations of this policy will result in rejection or retraction of the article and may result in sanctions imposed by the Editorial Board.
• Fabrication and Falsification of Data: Instances of fraud such as image manipulation, data fabrication or falsification will lead to the immediate exclusion of the manuscript from the evaluation process and may incur sanctions imposed by the Editorial Board.
• Corrections and Retraction: In cases involving significant errors or instances of scientific misconduct, such as plagiarism or data falsification, a retraction of the article may be necessary. The decision to retract an article is made by the Editor-in-Chief, after careful investigation and, if necessary, consultation with external experts. The retraction will be clearly identified as such and will remain linked to the original article on the journal's website, preserving the transparency and integrity of the academic record
• Artificial Intelligence: Authors should disclose the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process.

Statement: During the preparation of this work, the author(s) used [NAME OF the TOOL/SERVICE] for the purpose of [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the publication.
This statement does not apply to the use of basic tools for grammar and spelling checking, as well as reference management, among other practices. If there is nothing to reveal, there is no need to add a statement.

These policies are critical to maintaining the high ethical standards of scientific publishing and ensuring confidence in the integrity of the content published by BJMBR.

At BJMBR, we understand that transparency about competing interests is essential to make the best editorial decisions and to maintain the trust of our readers. We therefore require all participants in the publication process—authors, reviewers, and editors—to declare any potential sources of conflicts of interest. A conflict of interest, often referred to as a competing interest, is any financial, personal, religious, political or other affiliation or relationship that may influence or could be perceived to influence the objectivity and integrity of an author, reviewer, or editor. This includes, but is not limited to, patents, stock ownership, participation on company boards of directors or advisory boards, consulting, or receipt of speaker fees.

For Authors:

• Declare all sources of conflicts of interest when submitting the manuscript through the ScholarOne system, including, but not limited to, commercial and other relationships.
• If there are no conflicts to declare, this should be explicitly stated in the cover letter.
• The corresponding author should ensure review of this policy with all co-authors and collective disclosure of all relevant relationships.

For Reviewers and Editors:

• Declare any conflicts of interest directly to the journal or Editor-in-Chief before initiating the review process or making editorial decisions.
• Clearly detail relevant conflicts or confirm absence of conflicts.

Important Considerations:

• The existence of a conflict of interest does not prevent the publication of a manuscript, but transparency is vital for an impartial evaluation.
• Readers should be informed of any competing interests of the authors when an article is published.
• This process aims to ensure maximum transparency and integrity throughout all stages of the editorial and scientific publication process of BJMBR.

BJMBR is committed to academic integrity and originality in published works. To ensure authenticity and prevent misappropriation of ideas, processes, results or words from others without proper recognition, we have adopted a strict similarity verification policy.
Verification Policy:

• Which Cases Are Verified: All manuscripts submitted to BJMBR are verified through Similarity Check. This software is an advanced tool that compares submitted manuscripts with an extensive database of published content to identify potential text overlaps. This includes original articles, reviews, brief communications, and other types of articles.
• Timing of Verification: Similarity verification is performed at the beginning of the editorial evaluation process, prior to peer review. This ensures that originality issues are identified and addressed early in the submission and evaluation process.
• Consequences of Detected Similarity: Manuscripts exhibiting significant similarity with other published works, indicative of plagiarism, will be rejected. BJMBR understands plagiarism to be a serious violation of ethics in scientific publishing.
• Authors' Responsibility: Authors are fully responsible for the content and information presented in their manuscripts. They are expected to adhere to ethical standards for citation and recognition of previous work.
• Sanctions: Authors whose manuscripts contain plagiarism may face sanctions determined by the BJMBR Editorial Board. These sanctions may include the prohibition of future submissions to the journal for a specified period, along with other measures based on the severity of the case.

Inclusive language, which is sensitive to differences and promotes equal opportunities, is essential in the composition of scientific manuscripts. BJMBR advises authors to ensure their manuscript writing is free of prejudices, stereotypes, colloquialisms, and references to the dominant culture. It is important to avoid descriptors that refer to irrelevant personal attributes and to opt for plural nouns to pursue gender neutrality. In addition, the use of offensive or exclusionary terms in coding terminology should be avoided.

Aligned with the Sex and Gender Equity in Research – SAGER guidelines, BJMBR emphasizes the need for explicit inclusion and analysis of sex and gender data in surveys, where applicable. Authors should clearly report sex and gender determination methods and analyze how these variables affect research results.

It is essential to discuss the relevance of sex and gender in the results and to consider these differences in data interpretation. This commitment to accuracy and equity in research is reflected not only in the content but also in the language used in the manuscripts.

For further information on inclusive writing practices and the SAGER guidelines, see chapter 11 of the AMA Manual of Style,11th ed.

The purpose of the Journal is to publish the results of original experimental research that contribute significantly to knowledge in medical and biological sciences. Major criteria for acceptance are scientific quality, originality, and conciseness. Preference will be given to manuscripts that develop new concepts or experimental approaches and are not merely repositories of data. Papers that report negative results require special justification for publication. Methodological papers shall be considered for publication provided they describe new principles or a significant improvement of an existing method.

Submission of a manuscript to the Journal implies that the data have not been published previously and will not be submitted for publication elsewhere while the manuscript is under review. The following represent “prior publication”: any printed material in excess of 500 words describing results or methods of a submitted/in press manuscript; published tables or illustrations that duplicate the content of a manuscript; electronic manuscripts or posters available via the Internet.

 Papers that are not accepted for publication

• Studies on people not approved by an accredited Ethics Committee or without written informed consent from the subject or legal guardian.
• Studies on animals not approved by an accredited Ethics and Animal Care Committee.
• Manuscripts that report preliminary results or only confirm previously reported results.
• Manuscripts that describe the pharmacokinetics bioavailability and toxicity of drugs in people or animals.
• Manuscripts that deal with transcultural adaptation and validation of instruments of measurements.
• Manuscripts that translate a text published in another language and validate it on local patients.
• Manuscripts that use questionnaires translated from the language of another country and their validation in local patients.
• Manuscripts that present only in silico results.
• Manuscripts from the area of veterinary medicine.
• Manuscripts that report toxicological studies.
• Manuscripts containing purely descriptive observations will not be published.
• Manuscripts reporting new techniques will be published only when adequately validated and judged by the Editors to represent a significant advance.
• miRNA-based studies will receive low priority from the Journal except when the Editors consider that the research provides an outstanding contribution to current literature.

 Manuscripts that report biological activity of natural products
The Journal will consider papers for publication that describe the activity of substances of biological origin only if they satisfy all of the following criteria:

• Papers should describe the separation of the crude material into fractions (not necessarily into homogeneous materials) with the fractions containing biological activity identified clearly in the separation scheme. Phytochemical studies should be accompanied by biological tests. A survey of pharmacological activity of plant extracts or teas will not be considered for publication.
• In addition to the demonstration of activity in one or more biological system, experiments must be performed attempting to provide information concerning the mechanism(s) of action of the substance(s) being tested.
• Sufficient experimental information must be provided to permit repetition of the preparation of fractions and the bioassay used.
• Sources should be identified completely, and, if plant material, a specimen should be classified by an expert and deposited in a local botanical garden, university or research institute. The name and institution of the person who classified the plant and the number of the voucher under which it was deposited should be provided in the Material and Methods section.

Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses
Guidance for reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research.

Search strategy and selection criteria

• Start with a study descriptor. Is this a systematic review only (ie, an assessment of heterogenous trials with no summary estimate) or does it also include a meta-analysis (with an overall summary estimate from available data)?
• What were the criteria for study inclusion? List study dates, language requirements, populations assessed, and study design (eg, only randomized controlled trials or only observational studies).
• State any study exclusion criteria and reasons.
• Describe the data sources assessed. List databases searched and exact date cutoffs. Provide search terms used for at least one database such that the search could be repeated.
• How thorough was the search (eg, study authors contacted, grey literature sources assessed, and articles translated)?
• Did you search trial registries and seek data from any unpublished studies identified?
• What level of data was sought (individual patient-level data vs summary estimates)?
• Who did the searches and data extraction, and how were conflicts over inclusion resolved? Describe criteria for inclusion in the systematic review and also for inclusion in the meta-analysis (if different).
• Provide a link to the study protocol if available online. State statistics package and version number used for analyses.
• List study registration number and name of registry, if available.

Reports must conform to PRISMA 2009 guidelines.
Provide the study’s registration number: Guidance notes for registering a systematic review protocol with PROSPERO

BJMBR adopts a copyright policy aligned with the recommendations of the SciELO Criteria. These recommendations are essential to protect authors’ interests, while promoting the open and ethical dissemination of scientific knowledge.

• Copyright Ownership: Authors who publish in BJMBR retain the copyright to their works. This means that although the article is published under the aegis of the BJMBR, the intellectual property of the work remains with the author.
• Creative Commons Licensing: To facilitate the reuse and distribution of works, articles in BJMBR are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license. This license allows third parties to use and share the published works, provided they attribute the appropriate credit to the original author and acknowledge the publication in BJMBR. This approach promotes the dissemination of scientific knowledge in an ethical and accessible manner, allowing works to be widely distributed and reused without restrictions.
• Correct Citation of Original Work: In compliance with the CC-BY license, any reuse or distribution of articles published in the BJMBR must include the correct citation of the original work. This ensures that authors receive due recognition for their work and maintains the academic integrity of the publication process. BJMBR’s copyright policy reflects our commitment to promoting Open Science and respecting authors' rights and contributions. By publishing in BJMBR, authors gain visibility and recognition for their work, while contributing to the advancement of scientific knowledge.

Website’s Responsibility:
Copyright terms applied to the content published on BJMBR must be clearly stated and differentiated from the copyright terms applied to the website itself. This ensures transparency and a clear understanding of rights and obligations related to the journal content and website.

Author's Responsibility:
The use of generic names, trade names, and trademarks, among others, in this publication does not imply that such names are exempt from copyright restrictions and applicable regulations. Authors are responsible for obtaining necessary permissions for the reuse of copyrighted materials included in their manuscript.

All journal content and articles published by BJMBR, unless otherwise specified, are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license. Authors retain the copyright of their works, licensing them under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license, which allows articles to be reused and distributed without restriction, as long as the original work is correctly cited.

Self-Archiving by Authors:

• João Santana da Silva, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3323-5300, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/1551316349134426.

• Alessandra Carvalho Goulart, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Hospital Universitário, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1076-5210, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/3380581933287217
• Eduardo Magalhães Rego, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1567-4086, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/1543544998729361
• Itamar de Souza Santos, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3212-8466, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/6989790016592322
• João Agostinho Machado Neto, Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB), Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2937-8109, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/2613183219332680
• João Pereira Leite, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0558-3519, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/5191541542901913
• José Carlos Farias Alves Filho, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9918-8714, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/1316491658346452
• Laura Cristina Sichero Vettorazzo, Instituto do Câncer do Estado de São Paulo (ICESP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7999-5818, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/3814292055967483
• Luisa Lina Villa, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (FMUSP)São Paulo, SP, Brazil, Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4074-2335, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8379358682656422a
• Roberto César Pereira Lima Júnior, Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC), Faculdade de Medicina do Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, CE, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7033-655X, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8104904120076956

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

• Luiz Juliano Neto, Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Unifesp), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5589-2822, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/6593457386037361
• Marcelo Damario Gomes, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2767-6353, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/6936476347645507

Biological Pathogenics Agents

• Dario Simões Zamboni, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7856-7512, Lattes: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7856-7512
• José Freire da Silva Neto, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7946-2747, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8766155499372376

Cell Biology               

• André Fujita, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Instituto de Matemática e Estatística, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7756-7051, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/0247990329725342
• Emmanuel Dias Neto, Hospital AC Camargo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5670-8559, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/0278717765065500
• Hernandes Faustino de Carvalho, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Instituto de Biologia, Departamento de Biologia Celular, Campinas, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3080-9447, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/7329430744325373
• Katiuchia Uzzun Sales, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3768-5790, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8208481957628435
• Larissa Dias da Cunha, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1290-0263, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/4127831266679891
• Luiz Osório Silveira Leiria, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9483-3705,  Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/7150771162592094
• Michele Mazzaron de Castro, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9483-3705, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/3943356910864896
• Silvio Zanata, Departamento de Patologia Básica, Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR), Curitiba, Paraná, PR, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2818-6954, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/1574808996231296
• Vilma Regina Martins, Hospital AC Camargo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2909-8502, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/2774467864626548

Clinical Investigation

• Alceu Afonso Jordão Junior, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1288-0802, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/7962660479865267
• Aloisio Souza Felipe da Silva, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Hospital Universitário, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8250-1527, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/5903072692070497
• Adriano Eduardo Lima da Silva, Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFRP), Curitiba, Paraná, PR, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0613-5104, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/0458762470614776
• Ana Cristina Simões e Silva, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, MG, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9222-3882, Lattes http://lattes.cnpq.br/4408599021040004
• Andre Russowsky Brunoni, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Instituto de Psiquiatria (IP), Hospital das clinicas (HC), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6310-3571, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/7121719876219621
• Antonio Carlos dos Santos, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5502-4734, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8227933586403761
• Clarissa Yasuda, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9084-7173, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/7563241826313933
• Claudia Kimie Suemoto, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5942-4778, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/5056497474649400
• Cristina Marta Del-Bem, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0145-9975, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/1985180219976217
• Daniel Guimarães Tiezzi, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2660-0093, Lattes http://lattes.cnpq.br/1249884771676480
• Edna Teruko Kimura, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8403-4459, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/1377108494455149
• Eduardo G. Lima, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8501-9867, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8370199831834655
• Eduardo Magalhães Rego, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1567-4086, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/1543544998729361
• Emmanuel Dias Neto, Hospital AC Camargo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5670-8559, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/0278717765065500
• Felipe da Silva Paulitsch, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (FURG), Faculdade de Medicina, Rio Grande, Rio Grande do Sul, RS, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0319-2194, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8812827200603953
• Fernando Marcos dos Reis, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Faculdade de Medicina, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, MG, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9258-7472, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/3201214049358628
• Fernando Henpin Yue Cesena, Instituto Dante Pazzanese de Cardiologia, Seção de Hipertensão, Tabagismo e Nefrologia, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1051-9434, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/5523150503104628
• Gilberto de Castro Junior, Instituto Estadual do Câncer de São Paulo (ICESP), Centro de Oncologia, Pesquisa Clínica, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8765-3044, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/9380674942905578
• Guilherme Augusto Silva dos Santos, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8441-4512, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/7252899422258058
• Iolanda de Fátima Lopes Calvo Tibério, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (FMUSP)São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5662-7895, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8148205870336524
• Iscia Teresinha Lopes Cendes, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Faculdade de Ciências médicas (FCM), Campinas, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6221-6822, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/3944020856408245
• Itamar de Souza Santos, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3212-8466, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/6989790016592322
• Jayme Adriano Farina Junior, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9232-367X, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/1690170163362476
• Jayter Silva de Paula, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8111-3810, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/2064193183697012
• João Pereira Leite, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0558-3519,  Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/5191541542901913
• José Barreto Campello Carvalheira, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0136-0943, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/7767819982815154
• Luis Felipe Ribeiro Pinto, Instituto Nacional do Câncer (INCA), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5509-1008, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/0774809439237135
• Luisa Lina Villa, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4074-2335, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8379358682656422a
• Luiz Fernando Onuchic, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4053-5419, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/3320182064627767
• Marcellus Henrique Loiola Ponte de Souza, Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC), Faculdade de Medicina do Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, CE, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2376-3433, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/4001596522263940
• Marcio Sommer Bittencourt, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Hospital Universitário, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3711-1754, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/7441423216614403
• Marco Aurélio Romano-Silva, Universisdade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, MG, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6558-4639, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/1537768249023926
• Marcos Carvalho Borges, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6280-0714, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/3047726211027996
• Marcos Duarte, Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC), São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0344-7460, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/6768473215453005
• Paulo Tambasco de Oliveira, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), , Faculdade de Odontologia de Ribeirão Preto (FORP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6662-0486, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/3385398186406655
• Reinaldo Salomão, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1149-4598, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8370334857007434
• Roberto César Pereira Lima Júnior, Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC), Faculdade de Medicina do Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, CE, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7033-655X, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8104904120076956
• Rodrigo do Tocantins Calado De Saloma Rodrigues, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7966-6029, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/5187902541390363
• Rômulo Cássio de Moraes Bertuzzi, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Escola de Educação Física e Esporte, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0407-9620, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/6471278386232940
• Rossana Pulcineli Vieira Francisco, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9981-8069, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/9335253053250984
• Rui Curi, Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB), Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5095-9154, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/1414984410442703
• Rui Manuel Vieira Reis, Hospital do Câncer de Barretos, Centro de Pesquisa em Oncologia Molecular, Barretos, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9639-7940, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/6448722653761487
• Sara Teresinha Olalla Saad, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Hemocentro, Campinas, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0809-8068, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/5817599117160198
• Samuel Katsuyuki Shinjo, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3682-4517, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/9322677300788116
• Sandra Gofinet Pasoto, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7343-6804, Lattes http://lattes.cnpq.br/2825364157697922
• Sergio Paulo Bydlowski, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7582-5942, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/2153506219894492
• Silvia Regina Rogatto, Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho (UNESP), Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu, Botucatu, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4637-5687, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/2259986546265579
• Thais Mauad, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3354-1466, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/1409367562944345
• Valmor Alberto Augusto Tricoli, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Escola de Educação Física e Esporte, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9014-087X, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/2310936382086654

Immunology

• Anamélia Lorenzetti Bocca, Universidade de Brasília (UnB), Instituto de Ciências Biológicas (ICB), Brasília, Distrito Federal, DF, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3323-5300, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/7426592963217111
• Claudia Ida Brodskyn, Centro de Pesquisa Gonçalo Moniz, Laboratório de Imunoparasitologia, Laboratório de Imunoregulação, Salvador, Bahia, BA, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3367-5365, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8510726976369443
• Cristina Ribeiro de Barros Cardoso, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Ciências Farmacêuticas de Ribeirão Preto (FCFRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6156-3144, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/0899048830187429
• João Santana da Silva, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3323-5300, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/1551316349134426
• Laura Cristina Sichero Vettorazo, Instituto do Câncer do Estado de São Paulo (ICESP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7999-5818, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/3814292055967483
• Luiz Gustavo Araujo Gardinassi, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Escola de Enfermagem de Ribeirão Preto (EERP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9027-2688, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8922981412535108
• Niels Olsen Saraiva Câmara, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5436-1248, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8098379714093877
• Pedro Roosevelt Torres Romão, Fundação Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre (UFCSPA), Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, RS, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1039-2509, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/4298041503249719
• Renata Ferreira de Carvalho Leitão, Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC), Faculdade de Medicina, Fortaleza, Ceará, CE, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0202-771X, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/5213035069793195
• Simone Gonçalves da Fonseca, Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Instituto de Patologia Tropical e Saúde Pública, Goiânia, Goiás, GO, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5126-6306, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/3823367099967701

Neurosciences and Behavior

• Deborah Suchecki, Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP), Departamento de Psicobiologia, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1697-8663, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/0735654567907174
• Fátima C. Smith Erthal, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Instituto de Biofisica Carlos Chagas Filho (IBCCF), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5796-3738, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/2986344458571411
• Millene Rodrigues Camilo, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0310-6033, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/2401387035137932
• Octávio Marques Pontes Neto, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0317-843X, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/4843505847115221
• Rafael Naime Ruggiero, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP), ), Departamento de Neurociência e Ciência do Comportamento, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4712-6853, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/5372318020253092
• Ricardo Augusto Leoni De Sousa, Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, Diamantina, Minas Gerais, MG, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2622-032X, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/0755601911409505
• Ricardo Mario Arida, Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP), Departamento de Fisiologia, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7771-6133, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8352745170435172

Pharmacology

• Marco Aurélio Martins, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (IOC), Departamento de Fisiologia e Farmacodinâmica, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4708-5705, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8423282472108016

Physiology

• Eduardo Colombari, Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho (UNESP), Departamento de Fisiologia e Patologia, Araraquara, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1395-4036, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/4544450092427426
• Luciana Venturini Rossoni, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0944-9483, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/0029962971009244
• Armênio Aguiar dos Santos, Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC), Faculdade de Medicina, Departamento de Fisiologia e Farmacologia, Fortaleza, Ceará, CE, Brazil, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0912-3720, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/6367176618425888
• Ruy Ribeiro Campos Junior, Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP), Departamento de Fisiologia, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9404-0817, Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/2520398649906832

The Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research publishes original research articles of outstanding scientific significance. We will consider manuscripts of any length; we encourage the submission of both substantial full-length bodies of work and shorter manuscripts that report novel findings that might be based on a limited number of experiments. The key criteria are that the research demonstrates clearly its novelty, its importance to a particular field as well as its interest to those outside that discipline, and conclusions that are justified by the data.

Only those persons who contributed directly to the intellectual content of the paper should be listed as authors. Authors should meet all of the following criteria, thereby allowing persons named as authors to take public responsibility for the content of the paper.

• Conceived, planned and carried out the experiments that led to the paper or interpreted the data it presents, or both.
• Wrote the paper or reviewed successive versions.
• Approved the final version.

Holding positions of administrative leadership, contributing patients, and collecting and assembling data, however important to the research, are not by themselves criteria for authorship. Other persons who have made substantial, direct contributions to the work but cannot be considered authors should be cited in the Acknowledgment section, with their permission, and a description of their specific contributions to the research should be given.

BJMBR and Scielo endorse ORCID and require that all corresponding authors provide an ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript. We encourage coauthors to register and use their ORCID as well. 

We publish the corresponding author’s ORCID iD as well as any ORCIDs provided by coauthors if the manuscript is accepted. We participate in the auto-update feature implemented by Crossref such that when a paper is published, the authors’ ORCIDs are deposited and subsequently used to update each author’s ORCID record.

On submission, you must attach a document* signed by ALL authors of the manuscript informing that he/she:

1. participated in the research that led to the manuscript;
2. read and approved the text, tables, and figures submitted;
3. verified that the authors’ names, institutions, ORCIDs, and emails are correct.

The manuscript CANNOT be submitted without this document as a pdf file.

*Please upload the document, where indicated, concerning participation in the research, approval of the manuscript submitted, and verification of names, institutions, ORCIDs, and emails signed by EACH author of the manuscript, not by only one author signing for all authors. Signatures must be hand-written by each author. If necessary, individual documents from each author can be uploaded. We do NOT accept computer-generated signatures. There is no special form to be filled out. The document(s) can be a scanned file, photograph, PDF, Word document, or image.

Revised manuscripts must be accompanied by a cover letter that includes a detailed point-by-point listing as to how each of the reviewers’ comments has been addressed and describes any other changes made to the manuscript. Authors are invited to upload a copy of the original manuscript marked using Word with Track Changes, highlighting in yellow text to indicate changes and facilitate evaluation of the revisions.

BJMBR uses COPE guidelines (powered by iThenticate) to screen submitted content for originality. If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, we may issue a correction or retract the paper, as appropriate.

We expect that editors and reviewers will be vigilant in their evaluation of BJMBR submissions and will notify the journal about any plagiarism identified.

Publication charges (also referred to as “Article Processing Charges” or APCs) help BJMBR recover the costs of publication—including peer review management, journal production, and online hosting and archiving. BJMBR publishes all content Open Access and makes the content freely available online for researchers and readers to read, distribute, and reuse.

The authors are responsible for “publication charges” of all accepted papers. Publication charges will be billed to the Corresponding Author when the paper is accepted. The charge is R$4.000,00/paper for Brazilian authors and US$1,800.00/paper for authors outside Brazil and is independent of the length of the paper.

Please contact Reinaldo de Souza (einaldo.souza@bjournal.com.br) if you have any questions.

The cover letter should also contain the following information:

• Title of article.
• Name(s) of all author(s).
• Corresponding author: Name complete, E-mail of author to whom correspondence should be sent.
• If a version of the manuscript has been previously submitted for publication to another journal, include comments from the peer reviewers and indicate how the authors have responded to these comments.
• Papers in the area of Clinical Investigation should include a statement indicating that the protocol has been approved by the Hospital Ethics Committee (Hospital with which at least one of the authors is associated) and that written informed consent was obtained from all participants.

The text of a manuscript can only be accepted as a Microsoft Word file created with MS Word as a “doc” “docx” or “rtf” document.

• Use preferably Arial font, 11-point type, including the title page, abstract, text, acknowledgments, references, figure legends, and tables. Each page should contain the page number in the upper right-hand corner starting with the title page as page 1.
• Report all measurements in Système International, SI (http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units) and standard units where applicable.
• Do not use abbreviations in the title and limit their use in the abstract and text.
• The length of the manuscript and the number of tables and figures must be kept to a minimum.
• Ensure that all references are cited in the text, and listed and numbered in numerical order that they appear in the text.
• Generic names must be used for all drugs. Instruments may be referred to by proprietary name; the name and country or electronic address of the manufacturer should be given in parentheses in the text.

Guidance on grammar, punctuation, and scientific writing can be found in the following sources:

• Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers. 8th edn. Rockefeller University Press, Reston, 2006 http://www.scientificstyleandformat.org/Home.html
• Medical Style and Format. Huth EJ (Editor). ISI Press, Philadelphia, 1987, Marketed by Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore, MD.
• Writing scientific articles like a native English speaker: top ten tips for Portuguese speakers. Clinics (Sao Paulo). Mar 2014; 69(3): 153-157. doi: 10.6061/clinics/2014(03)01 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3935133/

The Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research follows the reference format of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, which can be found on the website of the National Library of Medicine (http://www.icmje.org/).

The writing style should be concise and accessible. Editors will make suggestions for how to achieve this, as well as suggestions for cuts or additions that could be made to the article to strengthen the argument. Our aim is to make the editorial process rigorous and consistent, but not intrusive or overbearing. Authors are encouraged to use their own voice and to decide how best to present their ideas, results, and conclusions.

Although we encourage submissions from around the globe, we require that manuscripts be submitted in American English. As a step towards overcoming language barriers, we encourage authors to seek the assistance of professional services available on the site (https://www.bjournal.org/service-and-information/).

Text footnotes, if unavoidable, should be numbered consecutively in superscript in the manuscript and written on a separate page following the abstract.

• Position all headings flush with the left margin.
• Keep headings short (three or four words).
• Use only three types of headings in the text. Clearly indicate the type of level of headings by using the following typographic conventions.
  • First-level: Only the 1st letter of the 1st word is capitalized, font size 11, bold type.
  • Second-level: Only the 1st letter of the 1st word is capitalized, font size 9, bold type.
  • Third-level: Only the 1st letter of the 1st word is capitalized, font size 11, italic type as the beginning of the first sentence of the paragraph.

Abbreviations should be kept to a minimum. Define all abbreviations upon first use in the abstract and the text. Non-standard abbreviations should not be used unless they appear at least three times in the text.

• Explain all abbreviations in the abstract, text, figure and table legends when they first appear. Keep the number of abbreviations to a minimum.
• Do not explain abbreviations for units of measurement [3 mL, not 3 milliliters (mL)] or standard scientific symbols [Na, not sodium (Na)].
• Abbreviate long names of chemical substances and terms for therapeutic combinations.
• Abbreviate names of tests and procedures that are better known by their abbreviations than by the full name (VDRL test, SMA-12).
• Use abbreviations in figures and tables to save space, but they must be defined in the legend.
• If your manuscript cites µm/mL, µg/mL, or mg/mL, the Greek letter for micro (µ) must be used and the letter “L” must be in upper-case type in the text and figures.
• All details of centrifugation including g units (not rpm), time, and temperature (oC) must be cited in the Material and Methods section.

The use of standardized nomenclature in all fields of science and medicine is an essential step toward the integration and linking of scientific information reported in published literature. We will enforce the use of correct and established nomenclature wherever possible:
We strongly encourage the use of SI units.

• s for second
• min for minute
• h for hour
• L for liter
• m for meter
• kDa for mass in kilodaltons
• 5 mM rather than 5 x 10-3 M or 0.005 M

Species names (e.g., Homo sapiens), genes, mutations, genotypes, and alleles should be italicized. Use the recommended name by consulting the appropriate genetic nomenclature database, e.g., HUGO for human genes. It is sometimes advisable to indicate the synonyms for the gene the first time it appears in the text.

Research Articles

Full length Paper should clearly state its objective or hypothesis; the experimental design and methods used; the essential features of any interventions; the main outcome measures; the main results of the study; and a discussion placing the results in the context of published literature.
Short Communication is a report on a single subject, which should be concise but definitive. The scope of this section is intended to be wide and to encompass methodology and experimental data on subjects of interest to the readers of the Journal.
Concepts and Comments should provide a platform for readers to present ideas, theories, and views.
Case Report should have at least one of the following characteristics to be published in the Journal: 

• special interest to the clinical research community;
• a rare case that is particularly useful to demonstrate a mechanism or a difficulty in diagnosis;
• new diagnostic method;
• new or modified treatment;
• a text that demonstrates relevant findings and is well documented and without ambiguity.

Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses

Guidance for reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research.

• The journal requires the registration of clinical trials and systematic review protocols in an adequate primary register platform (e.g., WHO ICTRP, ClinicalTrials.gov, PROSPERO). All information including the registration number must be cited in the Material and Methods section. Systematic reviews will be published as a systematic review, not as a Research Article.
• Start with a study descriptor. Is this a systematic review only (ie, an assessment of heterogenous trials with no summary estimate) or does it also include a meta-analysis (with an overall summary estimate from available data)?
• What were the criteria for study inclusion? List study dates, language requirements, populations assessed, and study design (eg, only randomized controlled trials or only observational studies).
• State any study exclusion criteria and reasons.
• Describe the data sources assessed. List databases searched and exact date cutoffs. Provide search terms used for at least one database such that the search could be repeated.
• How thorough was the search (eg, study authors contacted, grey literature sources assessed, and articles translated)?
• Did you search trial registries and seek data from any unpublished studies identified?
• What level of data was sought (individual patient-level data vs summary estimates)?
• Who did the searches and data extraction, and how were conflicts over inclusion resolved? Describe criteria for inclusion in the systematic review and also for inclusion in the meta-analysis (if different).
• Provide a link to the study protocol if available online. State statistics package and version number used for analyses.
• List study registration number and name of registry, if available.

Authors should check reporting requirements pointed by the Equator Network (https://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/) according to the type of their article. Specifically, clinical trials and systematic reviews should be accompanied by the study´s registration platform and number Provide the study’s registration number: Guidance notes for registering a systematic review protocol with PROSPERO

Review Article, should provide a synthetic and critical analysis of a relevant area and should not be merely a chronological description of the literature. The most important characteristics of Review articles are that they should be critical, synthetic, and written by persons who have made significant contributions to the specific research area. The review can be broad or focused, as in a mini-review. We want to protect the Journal from “reports” of the type that are found in the introduction to every dissertation or thesis.

Review articles are submitted to the normal peer review process.

1) the number of articles published by the author in the area;
2) the significance of the author’s contribution to the advancement of knowledge in the area;
3) the quality of the review;
4) the general interest of the Journal in the publication of such a review.

Overview should not contain unpublished data. It presents the point of view of the author(s) in a less rigorous form than in a regular review or minireview and is of interest to the general reader.

All papers should contain:

• Abstract of no more than 250 words,
• Key words:  no more than 6,
• Running title: to be used as a page heading, which should not exceed 60 letters and spaces,
• Text: when appropriated should be divided into separate sections (Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion), without a separate section for conclusions.

References

• Full Paper and Concepts and Comments should contain no more than 40 references.
• Short Communication and Case report should contain no more than 20 references and three illustrations (figures and/or tables). 
• Review Article, Systematic Review and Overview should contain no more than 90 references.

• Studies on people not approved by an accredited Ethics Committee or without written informed consent from the subject or legal guardian.
• Studies on animals not approved by an accredited Ethics and Animal Care Committee.
• Manuscripts that report preliminary results or only confirm previously reported results.
• Manuscripts that describe the pharmacokinetics bioavailability and toxicity of drugs in people or animals.
• Manuscripts that deal with transcultural adaptation and validation of instruments of measurements.
• Manuscripts that translate a text published in another language and validate it on local patients.
• Manuscripts that use questionnaires translated from the language of another country and their validation in local patients.
• Manuscripts that present only in silico.
• Manuscripts from the area of veterinary medicine.
• Manuscripts that report toxicological studies.
• Manuscripts containing purely descriptive observations will not be published.
• Manuscripts reporting new techniques will be published only when adequately validated and judged by the Editors to represent a significant advance.
• miRNA-based studies will receive low priority from the Journal except when the Editors consider the research provides an outstanding contribution to current literature.

Most articles published in the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research will be organized into the following sections:

• Title, Authors, Affiliations, Author for Correspondence and address
• Abstract, Key words, Running Title
• Introduction
• Results
• Material and Methods
• Discussion
• References
• Acknowledgments
• Tables with a short descriptive title and footnote legends
• Figures with a short descriptive title, descriptive legends and uniformity in format

Continuous page numbers are required for all pages including figures. There are no specific length restrictions for the overall manuscript or individual sections. However, we urge authors to present and discuss their findings concisely. We recognize that some articles will not be best presented in our research article format. If you have a manuscript that would benefit from a different format, please contact the editors to discuss this further.

Our online submission system can support a large range of formats for text and graphics, but if you experience difficulties with the site or are concerned about the suitability of your files, please contact the Production Department of the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research (bjournal@terra.com.br).

Title – The title should be as short and informative as possible, should not contain non-standard acronyms or abbreviations, and should not exceed two printed lines.

Example:
Single-step purification of crotapotin and crotactine from Crotalus durissus terrificus venom using preparative isoelectric focusing
Please also provide a brief “running title” of up to 60 characters and spaces.
Example: 
Purification of crotapotin and crotactine

Authors and Affiliations 
Initials and last name(s) of author(s) (matched with superscript numbers identifying institutions). Institution(s) (Department, Faculty, University, City, State, Country) of each author (in Portuguese if authors are from Brazil).

Example: A.S. Aguiar¹, A.R. Melgarejo¹, C.R. Alves² and S. Giovanni-De-Simone^2,3

¹Divisão de Animais Peçonhentos, Instituto Vital Brazil, Niterói, RJ, Brasil
²Laboratório de Microsequenciamento de Proteínas, Departamento de Bioquímica e Biologia Molecular, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, FIOCRUZ, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil
³Departamento de Biologia Celular e Molecular, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, RJ, Brasil

One of the authors should be designated as the corresponding author. It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that the author list is accurate and complete. If the article has been submitted on behalf of a consortium, all consortium members and affiliations should be listed after the Acknowledgments.

Corresponding author: Name and E-mail of author to whom correspondence should be sent.

Key Words: A list of key words or indexing terms (no more than 6) should be included. A capital letter should be used for the first letter of each key word, separated by a semicolon. The Journal recommends the use of medical subject headings of Index Medicus for key words to avoid the use of several synonyms as entry terms in the index for different papers on the same subject. Remember, key words are used by the Scielo Database to index published articles.

Running title: This short title, to be used as a page heading, should not exceed 60 letters and spaces.

Abstract: Since abstracts are published separately by Information Services, they should contain sufficient hard data, to be appreciated by the reader. The Brazilian Journal publishes unstructured abstracts in a single paragraph. The abstract should not exceed 250 words.

The abstract should briefly and clearly present the objective, experimental approach, new results as quantitative data if possible, and conclusions. It should mention the techniques used without going into methodological detail and mention the most important results.

Abbreviations should be kept to a minimum and should be defined in both the Abstract and text.

Please do not include any reference citations in the abstract. If the use of a reference is unavoidable, the full citation should be given within the abstract.

Introduction: The Introduction should put the focus of the manuscript into a broader context. As you compose the Introduction, think of readers who are not experts in this field. This should state the purpose of the investigation and justification for undertaking the research and relationship to other work in the field. An extensive listing or review of the literature should not be used. If there are relevant controversies or disagreements in the field, they should be mentioned so that a non-expert reader can delve into these issues further. The Introduction should conclude with a brief statement of the overall aim of the experiments and a comment about what was achieved.

Material and Methods: Sufficient information should be provided in the text or by referring to papers in generally available journals to permit the work to be repeated.
This section should provide enough detail for reproduction of the findings. Protocols for new methods should be included, but well-established protocols may simply be referenced. We encourage authors to submit, as separate files, detailed protocols for newer or less well-established methods. These will be linked to the article and will be fully accessible.
Papers in the area of Clinical Investigation should include a statement indicating that the protocol has been approved by the Hospital Ethics Committee (Hospital with which at least one of the authors is associated) and that written informed consent was obtained from all participants. This information must also be cited in the Material and Methods section of the manuscript.

Results: The results should be presented clearly and concisely. Tables and figures should be used only when necessary for effective comprehension of the data. The Results section should provide results of all of the experiments that are required to support the conclusions of the paper. There is no specific word limit for this section, but a description of experiments that are peripheral to the main message of the article and that detract from the focus of the article should not be included. The section may be divided into subsections, each with a concise subheading. Large datasets, including raw data, should be submitted as supplementary files; these are published online linked to the article. The Results section should be written in past tense. In some situations, it may be desirable to combine Results and Discussion into a single section.

Discussion: The purpose of the Discussion is to identify new and relevant results and relate them to existing knowledge. Information given elsewhere in the text, especially in Results, may be cited but all of the results should not be repeated in detail in the Discussion. The Discussion should spell out the major conclusions and interpretations of the work including some explanation of the significance of these conclusions. How do the conclusions affect the existing assumptions and models in the field? How can future research build on these observations? What are the key experiments that must be done? The Discussion should be concise and tightly argued. If warranted, the Results and Discussion may be combined into one section.

Acknowledgments: When appropriate, briefly acknowledge technical assistance, advice and contributions from colleagues. People who contributed to the work, but do not fit the criteria for authors, should be listed in the Acknowledgments, along with their contributions. Donations of animals, cells, or reagents should also be acknowledged. You must also ensure that anyone named in the Acknowledgments agrees to being so named.

Funding: Financial support for the research and fellowships should be acknowledged in the Funding section (agency and grant number).

Figures: Figures must be submitted in high-resolution version (600 dpi). Please ensure that the files conform to our Guidelines for Figure Preparation when preparing your figures for production.
If the manuscript has blots, the authors must submit the original uncropped blots as supplementary material. These uncropped blots must contain the film annotations and the ladder indicating the protein molecular weight.
Remember to identify the blots, the bands, and the figure to which they correspond.

Preparing figure files for submission 
The Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research encourages authors to use figures where this will increase the clarity of an article. The use of color figures in articles is free of charge. The following guidelines must be observed when preparing figures. Failure to do so is likely to delay acceptance and publication of the article.

• Each figure of a manuscript should be submitted as a single file in jpg format with 900 dpi.
• Figures should be numbered in the order they are first mentioned in the text, and uploaded in this order.
• Figure titles and legends should be provided in the main manuscript, not in the graphic file.
• The aim of the figure legend should be to describe the key messages of the figure, but the figure should also be discussed in the text.
• An enlarged version of the figure and its full legend will often be viewed in a separate window online, and it should be possible for a reader to understand the figure without moving back and forth between this window and the relevant parts of the text.
• Each legend should have a concise title of no more than 15 words. The legend itself should be succinct, while still explaining all symbols and abbreviations. Avoid lengthy descriptions of methods. Statistical information should be given as well as the statistical tests used.
• Arrows or letters should be used in the figure and explained in the legend to identify important structures.
• Figures with multiple panels should use capital letters A, B, C, etc. to identify the panels.
• Each figure should be closely cropped to minimize the amount of white space surrounding the illustration. Cropping figures improves accuracy when placing the figure in combination with other elements, when the accepted manuscript is prepared for publication. For more information on individual figure file formats, see Guidelines for figures.
• Individual figure files should not exceed 5 MB. If a suitable format is chosen, this file size is adequate for extremely high quality figures.
• Please note that it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce figures (or tables) that have previously been published elsewhere. In order for all figures to be open-access, authors must have permission from the rights holder if they wish to include images that have been published elsewhere in non-open-access journals. Permission should be indicated in the figure legend, and the original source included in the reference list.

Supported file types
The following file formats can be accepted.

• JPG – with 900 dpi.

Micrographs should be treated like photographs with the following additional guidelines

• Electron micrographs must contain a magnification bar with its equivalence in micrometers.
• This information can be found on all micrographs together with the magnification size.
• Details of any stains used and the method of preparation the sample should be given in the figure legend or in the Methods section.
• Detailed information about the microscope used should be included in the Methods section.
• The type of camera, photographic software and details of any subsequent image manipulation should be included in the Methods section.

More information see Guidelines for figures.

Tables 

• Tables must be submitted in Word (.doc) or Excel (.xls), not as an image.
• Tables must be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals in the text.
• Tables must have a concise and descriptive title.
• All explanatory information should be given in a footnote below the table. Footnotes should be used to explain abbreviations and provide statistical information, including statistical tests used.
• All abbreviations must be defined in this footnote, even if they are explained in the text.
• Tables must be understandable without referring to the text.
• Tables occupying more than one printed page should be avoided, if possible.
• Vertical and diagonal lines should not be used in tables; instead, indentation and vertical or horizontal space should be used to group data.
• Tables in Excel must be cell-based; do not use picture elements, text boxes, tabs, or returns in tables.

Only published or accepted manuscripts should be included in the reference list. Meeting abstracts, conference talks, or papers that have been submitted but not yet accepted should not be cited. Limited citation of unpublished work should be included in the body of the text only. All personal communications should be supported by a letter from the relevant authors. Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of their references and for correct text citation. When possible, references that are easily available in English should be cited.

The BJMBR uses the numbered citation (citation-sequence) method. References are listed and numbered in the order that they appear in the text. In the text, citations should be indicated by the reference number in parentheses. Multiple citations within a single set of parentheses should be separated by commas without a space (1,5,7). Where there are more than three sequential citations, they should be given as a range (4–9).

Because all references will be linked electronically (doi), if possible, to the papers they cite, proper formatting of the references is crucial. For all references, list the first 6 authors followed by et al., Title, Journal (abbreviation), Year, Volume, Complete Pages.

The Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research follows the reference format of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, which can be found on the website of the National Library of Medicine (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html).

Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research
Av. Bandeirantes, 3900, Cep: 14049-900
Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil
Tel: +55 16 3630-2778
        +55 16 3315-3173
E-mail: bjournal@terra.com.br