Update on innovative initiatives for the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology

Abstract

WE WOULD LIKE TO UPDATE the readership of the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology on the progress we have made in instituting the plan we laid out two years ago when we assumed the editorship of this venerable journal. We have expanded the content and features of the journal and have further enhanced the review process. Our time for manuscript review is an impressive 18 days from submission to first decision, and we have put great emphasis on providing authors with unambiguous decisions letters that provide clear and helpful guidance for a successful revision. Our look has changed with the elimination of the print version of the journal, the publication of two issues each month, the division of the table of contents into subspecialties of cardiovascular physiology, and the launch of article collections on hot topics. PodcastsOur principal new feature is the editorial podcast, an audio interview with key contributors aimed at providing unique insights into a featured article. These brief discussions (Ͻ10 min) with an author and a leading expert accompany "hot topic" papers published in the journal and are moderated by our editorial team. In our first two years we recorded 52 podcasts, which are posted online on our journal homepage (http:// ajpheart.physiology.org) and as supplements to the e-articles. Our goal is to make our podcasts easily discoverable via numerous access points, which include posting on our dedicated podcast web server (http://ajpheart.podbean.com), as well as offering podcasts via RSS feed and iTunes. Based on listener feedback and over 9,000 downloads, our podcasts are clearly a success.We have generated podcasts in all subdisciplines of cardiovascular physiology. We produced several podcasts in the field of vascular biology and microcirculation (7, 8, 10, 23,33,34,39,41,53,57,58,67,76,105,106,115,116), and we wish to highlight several key podcasts here. We discussed a human study that looked at the central blood pressure response to the cyclooxygenase inhibitor indomethacin in both old and young healthy adults (5), which addressed the question: What happens when you combine nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug-type pain medication and aging-induced arterial stiffening? In conjunction with the 2012 London Summer Olympics Games, we talked with Dick Thijssen (Liverpool John Moores University) about his work on the effects of preconditioning ischemic stimulus applied to the legs of elite athletes as a protection against endothelial dysfunction in the arms after a 5-km run (4). We also tackled the controversial subject of arterial function following menopause in an attempt to understand more clearly whether early intervention with estrogen therapy may combat accelerated vascular aging after menopause (62). In our podcast on the work by Sperandio et al. (85), we discuss how sildenafil, a phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitor, progressed first from ineffective treatment for ischemic heart disease, then later to a widely used treatment for erectile dysfunction, and now to current...