Artificial intelligence policy

Authors may use large language models to improve grammar, clarity, and language, provided they review every change. LLMs must not be used to generate original scientific claims, perform the literature review unattended, or produce references.

Reviewers and editors must not paste confidential manuscripts into public AI tools.

Any AI-generated or AI-substantially-edited prose must be checked by the authors for accuracy, originality, and correct citation. Authors are accountable for plagiarism, fabricated quotations, and invented references even if a tool produced them.

Do not submit text that you have not verified against the sources you cite.

AI-generated or AI-altered images must not be presented as empirical data, photographs of real scenes, or experimental results. Schematic illustrations produced with AI may be used only if they are clearly labeled as illustrative, do not depict real data, and the tool is named.

Do not use generative tools to modify western blots, micrographs, spectra, maps of real observations, or similar evidence. Inappropriate image manipulation is falsification.

Using AI tools to help write analysis code or software is allowed. Authors must understand, test, and be able to explain the code. If AI assistance materially affected methods or reproducibility, describe the tool and how it was used in the methods section.

ChatGPT, Copilot, and other AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Authorship requires legal and scholarly accountability, which only humans can provide. Tools may be named in the methods or acknowledgements, not in the author byline.

Disclose AI use in the methods or acknowledgements: the tool name and version if known, and the purpose (language editing, code assistance, figure illustration). Pure spelling or grammar checking with a non-generative tool does not need to be declared.

The corresponding author attests that all authors have reviewed the manuscript, that AI output has been verified, and that no confidential reviewer or editorial material was uploaded to an AI service.

Failure to disclose substantial AI use, or use that results in fabricated content, is handled under the publication ethics policy.