American Journal of Physiology

American Journal of Physiology
Title	American Journal of Physiology
Discipline	Physiology
Publisher	American Physiological Society
History	1898–present
Frequency	Monthly (and multiple specialized sections)

American Journal of Physiology is a long-running peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Physiological Society. It serves as a venue for experimental and theoretical work related to bodily function and biomedical science. The journal operates alongside many institutions, societies, and researchers who have shaped 20th- and 21st-century physiology.

History

The journal was founded in the late 19th century during a period when figures such as William Osler, Walter Cannon, Claude Bernard, Ernest Starling, and Ivan Pavlov influenced experimental medicine. Early editorial boards included members affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, Columbia University, Yale University, and University of Pennsylvania. Over decades the journal intersected with developments at National Institutes of Health, Rockefeller Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, Mayo Clinic, and Salk Institute. Its evolution paralleled milestones like the establishment of American Physiological Society, expansion of graduate programs at Cornell University, and wartime research collaborations with United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and Naval Medical Research Center. Editors and contributors often held posts at University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, and King's College London while corresponding with archives at institutions such as Library of Congress and museums like Smithsonian Institution.

Scope and Content

The journal covers experimental physiology, integrating work relevant to organ systems studied at centers like National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and research hubs such as Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Scripps Research. Articles address themes explored in departments at Imperial College London, University of Oxford, McGill University, University of Toronto, and Karolinska Institutet. Content types mirror contributions typical of periodicals including original research influenced by techniques from Pasteur Institute, meta-analyses paralleling syntheses from Cochrane Collaboration, methodological papers akin to those in Nature Methods, and reviews comparable to pieces in Annual Review of Physiology. The journal publishes studies with relevance to clinics like Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Mayo Clinic Hospital and to regulatory contexts exemplified by Food and Drug Administration decisions and funding from entities such as Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Wellcome Trust.

Publication and Editorial Practices

Publication practices have adapted in response to policies from bodies such as Committee on Publication Ethics, mandates like those from National Institutes of Health, and licensing norms similar to frameworks used by Public Library of Science and Elsevier. The editorial process echoes procedures developed at editorial offices in partnership with professional societies such as American Association for the Advancement of Science and editorial leadership from academics at University of Cambridge, Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University of California, San Diego. Peer review workflows are informed by precedents set at journals including The Lancet, Cell, Science, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Production and distribution practices interact with platforms run by organizations like CrossRef, ORCID, and aggregators similar to PubMed Central.

Abstracting and Indexing

The journal is abstracted and indexed in major services alongside other premier outlets indexed by Index Medicus, MEDLINE, PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and aggregators akin to Embase. Library cataloging follows standards used by Dewey Decimal Classification and Library of Congress Classification, and citations conform to styles recognized by American Psychological Association, Chicago Manual of Style, and Council of Science Editors. Discoverability benefits from integration with infrastructures used by Google Scholar, CrossRef, and institutional repositories at Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences, MIT Libraries, and University of California Library systems.

Impact and Reception

The journal's influence is reflected in citation metrics comparable to those reported by Journal Citation Reports and analyses performed by groups such as Institute for Scientific Information and Clarivate Analytics. Reception among researchers at institutions including Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Stanford School of Medicine, UCL Medical School, Karolinska Universitetssjukhuset, and University of Melbourne has been shaped by the rise of competing venues like Nature, Science Translational Medicine, and specialty journals at publishers such as Wiley-Blackwell and Springer Nature. Discussions of reproducibility and transparency involve stakeholders such as Retraction Watch, Open Science Framework, and funders including National Science Foundation and European Research Council.

Notable Articles and Contributors

Notable contributors have included investigators associated with Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Rockefeller University, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Broad Institute, and clinical centers like Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Seminal articles addressed mechanisms later explored by teams at Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and laboratories funded by Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Contributors have overlapped with laureates and awardees from Nobel Prize, Lasker Award, National Medal of Science, Royal Society, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators. Influential papers have informed work by researchers at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Karolinska Institutet, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and Mount Sinai Medical Center.

Category:Physiology journals