Brain enters its 141st year of continuous publication with this issue, and its 5th year under the current editorial team. It is tempting to be complacent, and use this editorial to list the metrics that testify to the journal’s continued success. There is, however, an important aspect where the journal does not appear to have moved as far from its 19th century origins as might be hoped. The current Editor is, in common with all 16 of his predecessors, male, as are 7 out of 9 Associate Editors, and 19 out of 24 members of the Editorial Advisory Board. How does this reflect the gender balance of authors publishing in the journal? Authors are not asked to self-identify as male or female upon submission or acceptance of manuscripts, and so the following estimates are predicated on numerous assumptions about how first names relate to gender, taking into account presumed nationality, and in a few cases supplemented by an online search of images. Between 2014 and 2017 (inclusive) first authors of original articles were more likely to be male than female in a 60:40 ratio. Using last authors as a surrogate for seniority, the male:female ratio was 76:24. These ratios have not shown any sign of shifting during the 4-year interval. This analysis has numerous potential flaws, and assumes a ‘gender binarism’ that belongs to a previous century. Nevertheless, the numbers are in line with abundant evidence of attrition of female scientists with increasing seniority in universities and other research environments. The male preponderance is not as marked as at Science, where only 25% of junior and 17% of senior author positions are held by women (Berg, 2017). This is perhaps not surprising, because medicine has a far more balanced intake than some of the physical sciences. There is, of course, not much that can be done by journals to address the imbalance whilst striving for a peer review process that avoids taking into consideration anything other than veracity, novelty and importance. One small area where the editorial team of Brain might be able to nudge the field is in inviting authors of commissioned scientific commentaries. Our efforts to date have however not been successful, as judging by the gender balance of this category of paper: 78% of authors in the last 4 years have been male. The only hint of a re-balancing is found in the Reviews and Updates, some of which are commissioned, and which go through a presubmission enquiry before authors are invited to submit. In this category the male:female ratio is 60:40. Overall, the report card for the last 4 years states, ‘Could try harder’.

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社论

脑进入第141期连续发行这一年，在其当前的编辑团队领导下进入第5年。人们很容易沾沾自喜，并使用这篇社论列出可以证明该期刊持续成功的指标。但是，在一个重要方面，该期刊似乎并未偏离其希望的19世纪起源。现任编辑与他的所有16位前任男性相同，在9位副编辑中有7位在编辑顾问委员会的24位成员中有19位在男性。这如何反映期刊中作者的性别平衡？提交或接受手稿时，不要求作者自认是男性还是女性，因此，以下估算是基于有关姓氏与性别如何相关的众多假设而得出的，考虑到假定的国籍，在某些情况下，还可以在线搜索图像。在2014年至2017年（含）之间，原创文章的第一作者在男性和女性之间的比例为60:40。使用最后的作者作为资历的替代物，男性与女性的比例为76:24。这些比率在4年的时间间隔内没有任何变化的迹象。这种分析有许多潜在的缺陷，并假设属于上个世纪的“性别二元论”。然而，这一数字与大学和其他研究环境中资历越来越高的女性科学家的流失证据相吻合。男性优势不如 在2014年至2017年（含）之间，原创文章的第一作者在男性和女性之间的比例为60:40。使用最后的作者作为资历的替代物，男性与女性的比例为76:24。这些比率在4年的时间间隔内没有任何变化的迹象。这种分析有许多潜在的缺陷，并假设属于上个世纪的“性别二元论”。然而，这一数字与大学和其他研究环境中资历越来越高的女性科学家的流失证据相吻合。男性优势不如 在2014年至2017年（含）之间，原创文章的第一作者在男性和女性之间的比例为60:40。使用最后的作者作为资历的替代物，男性与女性的比例为76:24。这些比率在4年的时间间隔内没有任何变化的迹象。这种分析有许多潜在的缺陷，并假设属于上个世纪的“性别二元论”。然而，这一数字与大学和其他研究环境中资历越来越高的女性科学家的流失证据相吻合。男性优势不如 这种分析有许多潜在的缺陷，并假设属于上个世纪的“性别二元论”。然而，这一数字与大学和其他研究环境中资历越来越高的女性科学家的流失证据相吻合。男性优势不如 这种分析有许多潜在的缺陷，并假设属于上个世纪的“性别二元论”。然而，这一数字与大学和其他研究环境中资历越来越高的女性科学家的流失证据相吻合。男性优势不如科学，女性担任初级职位的仅占25％，高级作者职位的占17％（Berg，2017年）。这也许不足为奇，因为医学的摄入量比某些物理科学要均衡得多。当然，期刊在解决同行评审过程中要做很多工作，而同行评议过程要避免考虑准确性，新颖性和重要性之外的其他事情，因此，要做的事情不多。大脑编辑团队的一个小区域也许有可能在邀请科学评论的作者方面推动这一领域。但是，到目前为止，我们的努力并未取得成功，因为从此类纸张的性别平衡来看：最近4年中78％的作者是男性。在“评论和更新”中找到了重新平衡的唯一提示，其中一些已委托，并且在邀请作者提交之前进行了提交前的查询。在此类别中，男性与女性的比例为60:40。总体而言，最近四年的成绩单上写着“可以再努力”。