How to Find Neurosurgery Articles and Collections on thejns.org

thejns.org is the Journal of Neurosurgery Publishing Group (JNSPG) site, and you can locate articles in four main ways: browse the Just Published feed for the newest papers, use Search or Advanced Search for a specific topic, open a specific journal's page (Journal of Neurosurgery, Spine, Pediatrics, Case Lessons, Neurosurgical Focus, or Neurosurgical Focus: Video), or go into Collections for editor-curated groupings such as the Leksell Top 25 and Best of lists. Full text access generally requires a subscription or institutional access, so expect to sign in or check with your library before assuming an article is free.

Start with the Just Published feed

The homepage surfaces a Just Published section that lists recent articles across the journals, each with authors, a short "In Brief" summary, a publication date, and a DOI link. This is the fastest route when you want to see what is new rather than search for something specific.

Each entry gives you enough to judge relevance before clicking through:

• Title and author list — confirms the topic and who did the work.
• In Brief — a plain-language summary of the finding, useful for scanning quickly.
• Publication Date — tells you how current the paper is.
• DOI link — the stable identifier you can paste into a reference manager or use to find the article elsewhere.

For example, a recent entry covers 34 years (1990–2023) of US spinal cord injury data from the Global Burden of Disease database, noting that prevalence and disability fell while incidence rose in adults over 65. The In Brief is often enough to decide whether to open the full article.

Search and Advanced Search

Use Search when you have a clear term — an author, a procedure, a condition. Use Advanced Search when you need to combine fields or narrow results, which is the better choice for systematic lookups.

A practical sequence:

1. Enter your core term (for example, a technique or diagnosis) in Search.
2. If you get too many results, switch to Advanced Search and add limits such as author, journal, or date range.
3. Open the result, then use the DOI to confirm you have the version of record.

The Help link next to the search tools explains the available operators if your first query returns noise.

Browse by journal

JNSPG publishes several distinct titles, so if you know the subspecialty you can go straight to the right journal instead of searching across everything:

Each journal page carries its own recent content, so this is the most efficient path when your interest is confined to one area.

Use Collections for curated reading

Collections group articles by theme or significance rather than by date. Examples on the site include:

• Leksell Top 25 sets (meningioma, vestibular schwannoma, and a "Since 2005" list)
• Top 25 Cited Gamma Knife® Surgery Articles (including a trigeminal neuralgia list and a Volume 111 list)
• Best of annual lists (2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, and a 75th Anniversary selection)
• Parkinson Disease: Top 25 Cited Articles
• Rhoton and Editor's Choice selections
• Journal Club and a COVID-19 collection

Collections are the right tool when you want a curated starting point on a topic — for a literature review, a teaching session, or orientation to a field — rather than a single answer.

Access and subscriptions

The site separates Individual and Institutional Subscriptions from AANS Member Subscriptions, and there is a dedicated subscription information page. If you hit a paywall, the usual routes are:

• Institutional access — check whether your hospital or university library subscribes; this is often the simplest option.
• AANS membership — members have a separate subscription path.
• Individual subscription — for readers without institutional or member access.

The site does not state that articles are free, so treat full-text access as gated unless you are signed in through a subscribing institution or membership.

Common sticking points

• Search returns too much — move to Advanced Search and add a journal or date limit.
• You cannot open the full text — you are likely not signed in through a subscriber; try your library or the subscription page.
• You want a topic overview, not one paper — go to Collections first, then follow the DOIs into individual articles.
• You need the citable version — use the DOI rather than a saved page, since it points to the version of record.