$10,500
IN PRIZES
The Cureus Journal of Medical Science is proud to introduce the first Automated Whole Brain Tractography: Clinical Impact in Neurosurgery publishing competition.
The preservation of eloquent brain is foundational to neurosurgery. Over the past decade, Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) has become an important tool for the pre-, intra-, and post-operative visualization of white matter tracts, thereby enabling neurosurgeons to maximally preserve neurologic function. Recent software advances in Automated Whole Brain Tractography (AWBT) now provide a more intuitive and easy-to-use vehicle for visualizing whole brain tractography in surgical patients. This competition looks to showcase practical neurosurgical opportunities stemming from such contemporary software tools.
To document and share clinical experiences related to AWBT, this competition seeks to develop the following neurosurgical-focused publications. Eligible submissions are limited to clinically and commercially available software.
- Case Reports & Case Series describing clinical experiences where AWBT was used in pre-surgical planning and/or intra-operative neuro-navigation. Eligible submissions shall describe the clinical impact of AWBT, including how it impacts surgical decisions, patient outcome, post-operative deficits, length of stay, etc.
- Technical Reports describing but not limited to the following: i) AWBT and its physiological relevance in visualizing functional white matter compared to other conventional technologies for visualizing functional brain regions, such as cortical stimulation mapping, functional MRI, etc.; ii) technical aspects such as workflows associated with AWBT, including the need for optimal DTI protocols, quality control of DTI data, etc.
- Review Articles describing the state of the field in using DTI to visualize white matter tractography. Submissions shall cover: i) differences between AWBT and other processes such as manual, ROI-based seeding methods; ii) a meta-analysis of the clinical impact of DTI in neurosurgery.
Competition results will be shared with the global neurosurgery and neuroradiology communities, with the goal of bringing genuine progress to their patient communities.
The winner of this competition will be determined by general acclaim of the medical community using Cureus Scholarly Impact Quotient™ (SIQ™) crowdsourcing technology. To encourage dissemination and cross-disciplinary awareness, all published materials will be Open Access and indexed with PubMed Central. We encourage you to contribute!
Program administration has been enabled through the financial support of Synaptive Medical. Article selection, editorial review, peer review, publication, and competition winner determination are strictly independent of the sponsor.
Peer Review Panel
All article submissions will undergo an independent pre-publication peer review conducted by a world-class team of experts.
Article analysis and commentary performed by the peer review panel are strictly independent of the sponsor.
Michael Sughrue
MD | Neurological SurgeryDepartment of Neurosurgery, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
Gustavo Pradilla
MD | Neurological SurgeryDepartment of Neurosurgery, Emory University School of Medicine
Charles Teo
MD | Neurological SurgeryPrince of Wales Private Hospital, University of New South Wales
Mykol Larvie
MD, PhD | RadiologyDepartment of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA | Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard Medical School
R. Shane Tubbs
PhD, Professor | Neurological SurgeryNeurosurgery and Structural & Cellular Biology, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, USA | Anatomical Sciences, St. George's University, St. George's, GRD | Neurosurgery and Ochsner Neuroscience Institute, Ochsner Health System, New Orleans, USA
Ryder Gwinn
MD | Neurological SurgeryNeurological and Spine Surgery, Swedish Neuroscience Institute, Seattle, USA | Neurological and Spine Surgery, Swedish Neuroscience Institute
Alireza M. Mohammadi
MD | Neurological SurgeryNeurological Institute, Taussig Cancer Center, Cleveland Clinic
Robert Wharen
MD | Neurological SurgeryNeurosurgery / Neuro Oncology Program, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL
Melanie Fukui
MD | RadiologyAurora Neuroscience Innovation Institute, Aurora St Luke's Medical Center
Competition Entries
The entry period is now closed. Competition entries appear below as they are published. Now is your chance to rate and discuss these articles. Remember, prizes will be awarded to the three highest-rated articles!
Requirements
Competition entry and article submission are entirely free. Eligible entries include case reports / case series, technical reports, and review articles. All submitted work must be previously unpublished and should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.
All articles must be submitted and formatted via the template-driven, self-publishing Cureus platform. Authors are encouraged to include supporting animations and videos within their article submissions. For additional information on publishing with Cureus, please refer to our Author Guide.
Other Stipulations
- All clinical studies must be compliant with applicable regulatory, ethics / IRB, and other rules governing protection of human subjects.
- All non-clinical studies must be compliant with applicable AAUC, AAALAC, and other related regulations.
- This program is not intended to promote or otherwise encourage unapproved, un-cleared use of products or any product for unapproved new use.
- This program in no way promotes or purports to encourage any research that is not in compliance with any local, federal, or other applicable governing laws.
Statement of Independence
- Cureus publishing competitions are intended to encourage medical discovery, document clinical experiences – be they positive, negative, or neutral – and foster broader educational outreach through Open Access publication that is free to both authors and readers.
- Article submissions must adhere to the described “call for articles” and are open to any and all related manufacturer or vendor technologies.
- As a firewall to ensure objective and credible science, article selection, editorial review, peer review and publication are strictly independent of sponsoring company.
- Winning articles are determined exclusively via peer review panel and community-crowdsourced rating. Neither sponsoring company nor Cureus can determine the competition's outcome.
Awards
Three Cureus Scientific Excellence™ prizes will be awarded to the published articles that receive the highest Cureus SIQ™ (Scholarly Impact Quotient™) rating:
1st Place: $5,000 USD
2nd Place: $3,000 USD
3rd Place: $1,500 USD
Subsequent to a formal editorial and peer review, published articles undergo SIQ rating – Cureus’ unique crowdsourced, secondary peer-review process. In addition to measuring engagement, SIQ allows the community-at-large to rate the quality of individual articles. Reviewers assign ratings from 1 to 10 on criteria including clarity and rationale, clinical importance, study design and methods, data analysis, novelty of conclusions and quality of presentation.
Aggregated community SIQ ratings allow clinicians and researchers to quickly assess article quality in a manner similar to that of Amazon® and Yelp® community-based reviews.
As engagement and ratings are critical to winning, authors are highly encouraged to share their published articles via social media and email.
Referral Award
Not interested in submitting related research? Please help further medical discovery by referring this publishing program to relevant colleagues within your network. Be the first to refer the winning article author and you’ll receive $1,000 USD for your efforts.
Please click here to refer this program to colleagues.
Sunshine Act Reporting
Section 6002 of the Affordable Care Act requires applicable manufacturers of covered drugs, devices, biologicals, and medical supplies to report payments or other transfers of value made to physicians and teaching hospitals. For winning article and referral awards paid to “covered recipients,” details of monetary awards shall be supplied to Synaptive Medical for subsequent Sunshine Act reporting.
Key Dates
- Wednesday, April 5, 2017 – Competition announced
- Wednesday, August 23, 2017 – Article submission deadline
- Wednesday, September 27, 2017 – Peer review of all eligible articles concludes
- Wednesday, October 18, 2017 – Competition crowdsourced review (SIQ) concludes
- Wednesday, October 25, 2017 – Winning articles announced