Journal rankings · indicator year 2018
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Field ranking · 2018
Neuroscience journal rankings 2018
321 ranked journals · Field in Life Sciences
Neuroscience has 321 ranked journals in 2018. The median OJR fell 0.05 on 2017 to 1.02, above the world average of 1.00; Q1 starts at OJR 1.56. The top three are Nature Neuroscience, Nature Human Behaviour, and Psychological Science.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2018. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2015–2017, the window the 2018 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Subfields in Neuroscience (8)
Up to Life Sciences321 ranked journals
Filters
Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2017. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2015–2017, the window the 2018 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2015–2017 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2009 to 2018. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Nature NeuroscienceNature Portfolio · United States | 7.18Q1 | 18.87 0.13 up from 2017 | 769 | 71% | $12,690 | ||
2Nature Human BehaviourNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 6.66Q1 | 7.63 0.15 down from 2017 | 246 | 36% | $12,690 | ||
3Psychological ScienceSAGE Publishing · United States | 4.72Q1 | 6.16 1.56 down from 2017 | 586 | 41% | $3,900 | ||
4Current Directions in Psychological ScienceSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 4.70Q1 | 6.76 0.62 down from 2017 | 238 | 50% | $3,900 | ||
5NeuronCell Press · United States | 4.63Q1 | 12.29 0.37 down from 2017 | 1,574 | 99% | $10,400 | ||
6Progress in NeurobiologyElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 4.59Q1 | 10.54 3.23 down from 2017 | 175 | 43% | $5,190 | ||
7Psychological ReviewAmerican Psychological Association · United States | 4.54Q1 | 8.21 1.01 up from 2017 | 118 | 47% | — | ||
8Journal of Pineal ResearchWiley · Denmark | 4.53Q1 | 16.00 3.20 up from 2017 | 236 | 20% | $5,000 | ||
9Molecular PsychiatrySpringer Nature · United Kingdom | 3.66Q1 | 10.73 0.66 up from 2017 | 713 | 78% | $5,490 | ||
10Frontiers in NeuroendocrinologyElsevier BV · United States | 3.53Q1 | 7.97 0.72 up from 2017 | 89 | 51% | $4,800 | ||
11Journal of Experimental Psychology GeneralAmerican Psychological Association | 3.01Q1 | 4.67 0.91 down from 2017 | 342 | 35% | — | ||
12Behavior Research MethodsSpringer Science+Business Media · United States | 2.93Q1 | 4.54 0.39 up from 2017 | 429 | 98% | $3,990 | ||
13Developmental Cognitive NeuroscienceOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 2.92Q1 | 5.52 0.17 down from 2017 | 264 | 100% | $3,650 | ||
14Journal of Memory and LanguageElsevier BV · United States | 2.84Q1 | 5.90 2.48 up from 2017 | 244 | 41% | $4,670 | ||
15Annual Review of PsychologyAnnual Reviews · United States | 2.83Q1 | 19.56 0.09 down from 2017 | 81 | 50% | — | ||
16Cognitive PsychologyElsevier BV · United States | 2.82Q1 | 4.91 0.49 up from 2017 | 106 | 33% | $3,570 | ||
17Biological PsychiatryElsevier BV · United States | 2.81Q1 | 5.75 0.70 down from 2017 | 1,032 | 13% | $5,489 | ||
18Nature reviews. NeuroscienceNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 2.77Q1 | 12.38 0.31 down from 2017 | 545 | 29% | — | ||
19Molecular AutismOABioMed Central · United Kingdom | 2.74Q1 | 7.71 0.22 down from 2017 | 177 | 100% | $3,990 | ||
20Neuroscience & Biobehavioral ReviewsElsevier BV · United States | 2.71Q1 | 9.83 0.88 up from 2017 | 901 | 57% | $4,860 | ||
21Neurobiology of StressOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 2.68Q1 | 9.32 3.49 up from 2017 | 71 | 100% | $4,050 | ||
22CognitionElsevier BV · Netherlands | 2.67Q1 | 4.85 0.64 up from 2017 | 682 | 57% | $3,910 | ||
23Current BiologyElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 2.61Q1 | 6.08no change | 2,556 | 97% | $7,030 | ||
24Journal of NeuroinflammationOABioMed Central · United Kingdom | 2.52Q1 | 6.76 0.40 up from 2017 | 791 | 100% | $4,090 | ||
25NeuropsychopharmacologySpringer Nature · United States | 2.51Q1 | 6.19 0.21 down from 2017 | 923 | 99% | $5,290 | ||
26Translational PsychiatryOASpringer Nature · United States | 2.45Q1 | 6.90 0.86 up from 2017 | 783 | 100% | $5,290 | ||
27Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain SciencesSAGE Publishing · United States | 2.43Q1 | 2.33 0.18 down from 2017 | 93 | 11% | $3,400 | ||
28NeuroImageOAElsevier BV · United States | 2.38Q1 | 6.35 0.32 up from 2017 | 2,687 | 66% | $3,540 | ||
29Psychonomic Bulletin & ReviewSpringer Science+Business Media · United States | 2.36Q1 | 5.02 1.35 up from 2017 | 614 | 99% | $3,790 | ||
30Social Cognitive and Affective NeuroscienceOAUniversity of Oxford · United Kingdom | 2.33Q1 | 4.96 0.65 up from 2017 | 497 | 100% | $2,379 | ||
31Journal of NeuroscienceSociety for Neuroscience · United States | 2.33Q1 | 6.29 0.35 down from 2017 | 3,707 | 100% | — | ||
32Human Brain MappingOAWiley · United States | 2.23Q1 | 5.26 0.04 down from 2017 | 1,117 | 97% | $3,520 | ||
33Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Cognitive ScienceWiley · United States | 2.22Q1 | 4.12 0.79 up from 2017 | 101 | 18% | $4,150 | ||
34Annals of the New York Academy of SciencesWiley · United States | 2.22Q1 | 4.80 0.17 down from 2017 | 822 | 49% | $5,080 | ||
35FlavourBioMed Central · United Kingdom | 2.18Q1 | 2.88 0.52 down from 2017 | 45 | — | — | ||
36Brain Behavior and ImmunityElsevier BV · United States | 2.16Q1 | 5.88 0.02 down from 2017 | 798 | 54% | $5,680 | ||
37British Journal of PsychologyWiley · United Kingdom | 2.10Q1 | 3.59 0.42 up from 2017 | 119 | 36% | $3,800 | ||
38NeuroImage ClinicalOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 2.04Q1 | 4.53 0.10 down from 2017 | 832 | 100% | $3,490 | ||
39Trends in Cognitive SciencesElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 2.04Q1 | 11.93 0.94 up from 2017 | 390 | 60% | $7,030 | ||
40Tissue BarriersTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 2.03Q1 | 5.55 0.19 up from 2017 | 85 | 100% | — | ||
41Annual Review of NeuroscienceAnnual Reviews · United States | 2.03Q1 | 15.83 3.40 down from 2017 | 67 | 48% | — | ||
42Cerebral CortexOxford University Press · United States | 2.03Q1 | 5.12 0.23 down from 2017 | 1,119 | 74% | $5,038 | ||
43Bilingualism Language and CognitionCambridge University Press · United Kingdom | 2.03Q1 | 2.79 0.77 up from 2017 | 288 | 60% | $3,550 | ||
44Network NeuroscienceOAThe MIT Press · United States | 2.02Q1 | 4.86no 2017 value | 35 | 100% | $1,750 | — | |
45Topics in Cognitive ScienceWiley · United States | 2.00Q1 | 2.75 0.47 down from 2017 | 169 | 81% | $3,470 | ||
46IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental DevelopmentInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers · United States | 1.97Q1 | —no 2017 value | 31 | — | — | ||
47NeuroinformaticsSpringer Science+Business Media · United States | 1.97Q1 | 5.88 1.88 up from 2017 | 94 | 43% | $4,890 | ||
48GliaWiley · United States | 1.96Q1 | 5.83 0.54 down from 2017 | 477 | 49% | $5,450 | ||
49The NeuroscientistSAGE Publishing · United States | 1.93Q1 | 4.97 0.11 down from 2017 | 158 | 45% | $4,400 | ||
50Frontiers in NeuroscienceOAFrontiers Media · Switzerland | 1.93Q1 | 4.71 0.47 down from 2017 | 1,836 | 100% | $3,801 |
Citations made in 2018. Corpus-wide, 81.5% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
108 additional Neuroscience journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2015–2017, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2018. Publication window: 2015–2017. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 321
- Window papers (baseline)
- 184,806 +1.8% from indicator year 2015
- Median OJR
- 1.022 -5.9% from indicator year 2015
- Rising journals (2025)
- 30Comparison-group list (30)
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2015–2017 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 196 | 201 | 210 | 220 | 223 | 230 | 231 | 238 | 242 | 248 | 266 | 276 | 290 | 292 | 295 | 306 | 314 | 319 | 321 | 328 | 332 | 344 | 352 | 356 | 360 | 355 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 92,779 | 97,762 | 100,667 | 104,810 | 108,324 | 115,003 | 120,244 | 126,308 | 131,531 | 143,118 | 150,842 | 164,012 | 167,583 | 173,307 | 175,900 | 181,549 | 185,572 | 184,543 | 184,806 | 187,130 | 193,371 | 201,253 | 210,793 | 215,142 | 216,969 | 218,119 | |
| Median OJR | 0.79 | 0.84 | 0.889 | 0.91 | 0.924 | 0.998 | 1.04 | 0.9996 | 1.024 | 1.094 | 1.146 | 1.136 | 1.16 | 1.150 | 1.141 | 1.086 | 1.083 | 1.076 | 1.022 | 1.06 | 1.01 | 0.93 | 0.918 | 0.90 | 0.890 | 0.86 |
| Measure | Category statistic | Eligible population |
|---|---|---|
| Journal self-citation share | Median: 3.2% | 293 journals |
| Retracted papers per 1,000 | Pooled rate: 0.951 per 1,000 | 257 journals |
| Output growth | Median: -9.4% | 327 journals |
| Open access share | Median: 68.0% | 355 journals |
| Listed APC (USD) | Median including $0 listed prices: $3,555 | 226 ranked journals with a known listed price, including $0 listed prices |
| International collaboration share | Median: 27.0% | 344 journals |
| Review share | Median: 1.4% | 355 journals |
| Articles-only OJR | Median: 0.86 | 349 journals |
| Uncited share | Median: 27.2% | 355 journals |
| Citation concentration | Median: 43.1% | 355 journals |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.