Disclosure of AI Use

Authors should disclose substantive use of generative AI or other AI-assisted technologies in the preparation of a manuscript. Disclosure should identify the nature and purpose of the AI assistance, including its use in writing or revising text, language editing, literature or reference-related activities, data analysis, interpretation, image or illustration generation, or other substantive aspects of the work.

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Routine or incidental use of AI-enabled features incorporated into commonly used software for word processing, formatting, spelling and grammar checking, reference management, presentation preparation, or similar technical functions does not ordinarily require separate disclosure unless the AI system materially contributed to the intellectual, scientific, analytical, or visual content of the manuscript.

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Authorship and Responsibility

Artificial intelligence systems and AI-assisted technologies must not be listed as authors or co-authors. AI systems cannot assume responsibility for submitted work, approve the final manuscript, respond to questions concerning scientific integrity, disclose conflicts of interest, transfer copyright, or accept accountability for errors or misconduct.

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Human authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, integrity, originality, scientific validity, and ethical conduct of the work. Authors must critically review and verify all substantive AI-assisted outputs before submission and must not rely upon AI-generated information, references, interpretations, analyses, or images without appropriate human verification.

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AI-Generated Illustrations in Review Articles

The use of AI-assisted technologies to generate or develop conceptual illustrations in review articles is permitted when the use is fully disclosed. Such illustrations may be used to communicate scientific concepts, mechanisms, hypotheses, relationships, or other forms of scholarly synthesis.

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AI-generated illustrations must not be presented as primary experimental or clinical data or as direct representations of observations that were not actually made. Authors are responsible for verifying the scientific accuracy of every element of an AI-assisted illustration and for ensuring appropriate originality, provenance, permissions, copyright compliance, and absence of misleading or fabricated scientific content.

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For an AI-generated or substantively AI-assisted conceptual illustration, authors should include the following statement, or an appropriately modified equivalent, at the end of the figure legend:

“This illustration was generated through iterative prompting of artificial intelligence programs until the desired figure was obtained. The authors reviewed and verified the scientific accuracy of the final illustration.”

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AI Use in Scientific Data and Images

The use of AI in the analysis of scientific data should be described with sufficient methodological detail to permit readers to understand its role in the analysis and interpretation of the findings. AI-assisted analytical methods should be reported as part of the study methodology when they materially affect the results.

 

AI-generated or AI-modified content must never be represented as authentic experimental observations, clinical findings, patient images, histological or microscopic findings, diagnostic images, or other primary scientific evidence when it is not derived from the underlying observations or data. Any legitimate computational transformation or AI-assisted analysis of scientific images or data must be transparently described in the Methods or other appropriate section.

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Verification of References and Scientific Content

Authors are responsible for independently verifying scientific statements, quotations, references, bibliographic information, digital object identifiers (DOIs), PubMed identifiers (PMIDs), numerical results, and other factual information produced or suggested by AI-assisted systems. Fabricated, inaccurate, unverifiable, or inappropriate references or scientific claims remain the responsibility of the authors regardless of whether they originated from an AI system.

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Transparency and Accountability

The journal supports responsible use of emerging technologies when they improve scientific communication without compromising scientific integrity. The governing principles are transparency, appropriate disclosure, human verification, and human accountability. The use of AI does not diminish the responsibility of authors for any component of their submitted work.

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When there is uncertainty about whether a particular use of AI should be disclosed, authors are encouraged to disclose it. Transparency is preferable to omission.