Best Cognitive Neuroscience Journals (2026)

Paste your title and abstract to get 5 realistic matches from verified biomedical journals — every publisher, no predatory journals, and your abstract is never stored.

Type your field and pick it to see the top-ranked journals — every journal listed is indexed in PubMed, DOAJ, or a curated core source list.

Top Cognitive Neuroscience journals

#Journalh-indexCitations/paper (2 yr)TierAccessIndexed in
1Nature Neuroscience
Nature Portfolio
60517.14FlagshipSubscriptionPubMed · Core
2Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Elsevier BV
46310.05FlagshipSubscriptionPubMed · Core
3Sleep Medicine Reviews
Elsevier BV
2297.92Leading field journalSubscriptionPubMed · Core
4Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
Elsevier BV
3767.76Leading field journalSubscriptionPubMed · Core
5Autism
SAGE Publishing
1786.21Leading field journalSubscriptionPubMed · Core
6Translational Psychiatry
Springer Nature
1826.17Leading field journalOpen access · APC $4,790PubMed · DOAJ · Core
7Neuropsychology Review
Springer Science+Business Media
1436.14Leading field journalSubscriptionPubMed · Core
8IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
1905.86Leading field journalOpen access · APC —PubMed · DOAJ · Core
9Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
Elsevier BV
1195.78Leading field journalSubscriptionPubMed · Core
10Molecular Autism
BioMed Central
1155.36Leading field journalOpen access · APC $3,490PubMed · DOAJ · Core
11Frontiers in Neuroinformatics
Frontiers Media
1135.09Leading field journalOpen access · APC $3,295PubMed · DOAJ · Core
12Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
Elsevier BV
1295.02Leading field journalOpen access · APC $3,280PubMed · DOAJ · Core
13Biomedical Signal Processing and Control
Elsevier BV
1524.81Leading field journalSubscriptionPubMed · Core
14Human Brain Mapping
Wiley
2764.71Leading field journalOpen access · APC $3,850PubMed · DOAJ · Core
15Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience
Frontiers Media
1074.23Leading field journalOpen access · APC $3,295PubMed · DOAJ · Core
16Frontiers in Neuroscience
Frontiers Media
2254.11Leading field journalOpen access · APC $3,295PubMed · DOAJ · Core
17Journal of Neural Engineering
IOP Publishing
1664.11Leading field journalSubscriptionPubMed · Core
18Cerebral Cortex
Oxford University Press
3504.06Leading field journalSubscriptionPubMed · Core
19NeuroImage
Elsevier BV
5344.05Leading field journalOpen access · APC $3,450PubMed · DOAJ · Core
20BMC Neuroscience
BioMed Central
1363.95Leading field journalOpen access · APC $2,790PubMed · DOAJ · Core
21Brain Sciences
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
1143.9Solid specialistOpen access · APC $2,227PubMed · DOAJ · Core
22Network Computation in Neural Systems
Taylor & Francis
1023.89Solid specialistSubscriptionPubMed · Core
23IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
3113.84Leading field journalSubscriptionPubMed · Core
24Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance
American Psychological Association
2923.52Leading field journalSubscriptionPubMed · Core
25NeuroImage Clinical
Elsevier BV
1343.52Solid specialistOpen access · APC $3,400PubMed · DOAJ · Core
26Psychophysiology
Wiley
2653.5Leading field journalSubscriptionPubMed · Core
27Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
Frontiers Media
1393.42Solid specialistOpen access · APC $3,295PubMed · DOAJ · Core
28Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Frontiers Media
2233.34Solid specialistOpen access · APC $3,295PubMed · DOAJ · Core
29Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience
Frontiers Media
1033.34Solid specialistOpen access · APC $3,295PubMed · DOAJ · Core
30Journal of Sleep Research
Wiley
1773.31Solid specialistSubscriptionPubMed · Core

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You paste your title and abstract; an AI model classifies the paper into biomedical subfields and honestly assesses its scope, then ranks a shortlist of verified journals from our dataset of 2,600+ biomedical journals. Every metric shown comes from the dataset — the AI can never invent a journal or a number.

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How is this different from JANE or the Elsevier Journal Finder?+

Publisher tools like Elsevier's, Springer's, or Wiley's finders only recommend their own journals. JANE is cross-publisher but hasn't changed since 2007 and can surface journals of unverified quality from PubMed. This finder is cross-publisher, only shows journals verified in trusted indexes, and calibrates recommendations to your paper's realistic tier.

How do you keep predatory journals out?+

By construction: every journal in our dataset must be indexed in DOAJ, PubMed, or a curated core source list, with a real citation record. Journals with no verified quality signals simply never appear — we don't maintain accusatory blacklists.

Is my abstract stored or used to train AI?+

No. Your abstract is processed to generate recommendations and is not stored, logged, or used for model training. We know unpublished work is sensitive.

Which fields are covered?+

All of biomedicine and the life sciences: 38 subfields from molecular biology, immunology, and oncology to public health, pharmacology, neuroscience, plant science, and veterinary medicine.

Why don't you show impact factors?+

The Journal Impact Factor is proprietary to Clarivate and requires a paid license. We show open, verifiable alternatives instead: h-index and 2-year citations per paper from OpenAlex, plus each journal's percentile within its own field — which is more informative for comparing journals in the same specialty.

Where does the data come from?+

From open, verifiable sources: OpenAlex (CC0) for citation metrics, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's PubMed journal list, and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Publishing in the wrong venue has real consequences — in 2019 a U.S. federal court ordered the publisher OMICS Group to pay $50.1 million for deceptive peer-review claims. When in doubt about any journal, use the Think. Check. Submit. checklist at thinkchecksubmit.org.

How do I find top-quartile journals in my field?+

Use the browse section: pick your subfield and the table ranks journals by 2-year citations per paper. Tier 1–2 journals roughly correspond to the top quartile of a field. Each row shows open-access status, publication fees (APC), and which trusted indexes list the journal.

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Data: OpenAlex (CC0) · U.S. National Library of Medicine · DOAJ. Quality signals are informational, refreshed periodically, and are not an endorsement or judgment about any journal; no endorsement by NLM/NIH is implied. Spotted an error? Contact us and we'll review it.