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Specialty chief editor

Scope

The specialty section on Abdominal and Pelvic Pain aims to advance research and knowledge surrounding the underlying central neurocircuitry of visceral pain, in order to identify and validate molecular targets for novel pharmaceutics and analgesia. Research efforts will focus on characterizing the mechanisms of visceral pain, including abdominal pain, chronic pelvic pain (CPP) and chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CPPS); debilitating conditions that present a public health crisis and a burden on healthcare expenditure.  Examples of visceral pain syndromes include Vulvar Pain Syndrome (Vulvodynia), Vestibular Pain Syndrome, Clitoral Pain Syndrome, Dysmenorrhea, Endometriosis-Associated Pain Syndrome, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Pelvic Floor Muscle-pain Syndrome.

Areas that will be covered by this section, but are not limited to:

·       Neurogastroenterology and the enteric nervous system

·       The role of the CNS in pathogenesis of chronic visceral pain

·       Stress-induced visceral hypersensitivity; the role of the amygdala and sex differences

·       Mechanisms of central neural circuitry underlying visceral pain

·       Neural innervation of the gastrointestinal tract

·       Gut-brain axis / interactions in the development and treatment of chronic gastrointestinal pain

·       Contribution of the microbiome to pain processing and higher order function

This section will accept high-quality, cutting edge research focused on identifying and elucidating the role of central and peripheral neuroplasticity in these syndromes, as well as the association with anxiety.  All studies must contribute insights to the epidemiology, generation, diagnosis, treatment and/or management of abdominal/pelvic pain. Articles focusing on specific visceral pain syndromes rather than the resulting persistent pain, do not fall within the scope of this section and should be submitted to our sister journal, Frontiers in Physiology.

Frontiers in Pain Research is member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.

Facts

  • Short name

    Front. Pain Res.

  • Abbreviation

    fpain

  • Electronic ISSN

    2673-561X

  • PMCID

    All published articles receive a PMCID

  • Impact

    2.5 Impact Factor

    2.1 CiteScore

  • Indexed in

    PubMed Central (PMC), Google Scholar, DOAJ, CrossRef, Web of Science Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) , Scopus, Chinese Academy of Sciences GoOA, CLOCKSS, CNKI Scholar, CrossRef, DeepGreen, Dimensions, Figshare, Google Scholar, Jisc, OpenAIRE, MyScienceWork, 1Science, Sherpa/Romeo, EBSCO

Submission

Abdominal and Pelvic Pain welcomes submissions of the following article types: Brief Research Report, Case Report, Clinical Trial, Correction, Data Report, Editorial, General Commentary, Hypothesis & Theory, Methods, Mini Review, Opinion, Original Research, Perspective, Policy Brief, Policy and Practice Reviews, Review, Systematic Review.

All manuscripts must be submitted directly to the section Abdominal and Pelvic Pain, where they are peer-reviewed by the Associate and Review Editors of the specialty section.

Open access statement

Open access logo

Frontiers' philosophy is that all research is for the benefit of humankind. Research is the product of an investment by society and therefore its fruits should be returned to all people without borders or discrimination, serving society universally and in a transparent fashion.

That is why Frontiers provides online free and open access to all of its research publications. For more information on open access click here.

Open access funder and institutional mandates

Frontiers is fully compliant with open access mandates, by publishing its articles under the Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC-BY). Funder mandates such as those by the Wellcome Trust (UK), National Institutes of Health (USA) and the Australian Research Council (Australia) are fully compatible with publishing in Frontiers. Authors retain copyright of their work and can deposit their publication in any repository. The work can be freely shared and adapted provided that appropriate credit is given and any changes specified.

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Quality

Each Frontiers article strives for the highest quality, thanks to genuinely collaborative interactions between authors, editors and reviewers, who include many of the world's best scientists and scholars. Frontiers is well aware of the potential impact of published research both on future research and on society and, hence, does not support superficial review, light review or no-review publishing models.

Frontiers uses the single anonymized peer review model, where the reviewer identity is not made visible to the author, while the author identity is visible to the reviewer, and reviewer and the authors’ identities are visible to the decision-making editor. Reviewers interact with the handling editor and the authors. Editor and reviewer names and affiliations are published on all Frontiers articles.

Research must be certified by peers before entering a stream of knowledge that may eventually reach the public - and shape society. Therefore, Frontiers only applies the most rigorous and unbiased reviews, established in the high standards of the Frontiers Review System. Furthermore, only the top certified research, evaluated objectively through quantitative online article level metrics, is disseminated to increasingly wider communities as it gradually climbs the tiers of the Frontiers Tiering System from specialized expert readership towards public understanding.

Frontiers has a number of procedures in place to support and ensure the quality of the research articles that are published:

  • 2023

    • Editorial Board Quality

      • Only leading experts and established members of the research community are appointed to the Frontiers Editorial Boards. Chief Editors, Associate Editors and Review Editors are all listed with their names and affiliations on the Journal pages and are encouraged to publicly list their publication credentials.

    • Associate Editor Assignment Quality

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      • Submitting authors can choose a preferred Associate Editor to handle their manuscript, because they can judge well who would be an appropriate expert in editing their manuscript. There is no guarantee for this preference of choice, Associate Editors can decline invitations any time, and the handling Associate Editor can also be over-ridden by the Chief Editor before she/he is invited to edit the article or at any other stage.

      • Associate Editors are mandated to only accept to edit a manuscript if they have no conflicts of interest (as stated here and in their review invitation and assignment emails).

      • Should it become clear that the Associate Editor has a conflict of interest or is unable to perform the peer-review timely and adequately, a new Associate Editor can be assigned to the manuscript by the Chief Editor, who has full control to intervene in the peer-review process at any time.

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    • Reviewer Assignment Quality

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      • After a certain time frame and if no reviewers have in the meantime been assigned to the manuscript, the Frontiers platform and algorithmic safety-net steps in and invites the most appropriate Review Editors based on constantly updated and improved algorithms that match reviewer expertise with the submitted manuscript.

      • Review Editors and reviewers are mandated to only accept to review a manuscript if they have no conflicts of interest (as stated here and in their review invitation and assignment emails).

      • Frontiers algorithms are constantly fine-tuned to better match Review Editors with manuscripts, and additional checks are being coded into the platform, for example regarding conflicts of interest.

      • Should it become clear that a particular reviewer has a conflict of interest or is unable to perform the peer-review timely and adequately, he or she shall be replaced with an alternative reviewer by the Associate Editor or the Chief Editor, who will be alerted and has full control to intervene into the peer-review at any time.

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    • Interactive Review Stage Quality

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      • Manuscript and review quality at this stage are enhanced by allowing authors and reviewers to discuss directly with each other in real-time until they reach consensus and a final version of the manuscript is endorsed by the reviewers.

      • Reviewer identity is protected at this stage to safeguard complete freedom of opinion.

      • Reviewers can recommend rejection at this stage if their requests to correct objective errors are not being met by the authors or if they deem the article overall of insufficient quality.

      • Should a dispute arise, authors or reviewers can trigger an arbitration and will alert the Associate Editor, who can assign more reviewers and/or bring the dispute to the attention of the Chief Editor. The Associate Editor can also weigh in on the discussion and is asked to mediate the process to ensure a constructive revision stage.

    • Decision Stage Quality

      • The decision to accept an article needs to be unanimous amongst all reviewers and the handling Associate Editor.

      • The names of the Associate Editor and reviewers are disclosed on published articles to encourage in depth and rigorous reviews, acknowledge work well done on the article and to bring transparency and accountability into peer-review.

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      • Chief Editors receive an honorarium if their specialty section or field reaches certain submission levels. However, this honorarium is based on the total number of submitted articles during a calendar year, and not the number of accepted articles. Therefore they also have no financial incentive to accept manuscripts.

    • Post-Publication Stage Quality

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      • Frontiers has a community retraction protocol in place to retract papers where serious concerns have been raised and validated by the community that warrant retraction, including ethical concerns, honest errors or scientific misconduct.