MRM Letter from the Editor: December 2025

Dear Magnetic Resonance in Medicine Subscribers,

Volume 94, Issue 6, brings us to the end of 2025’s issues. We are currently set to exceed 1000 submissions this year, returning the journal to the immediate pre-COVID level (there was a distinct dip in academic output for some time after COVID). In total, 405 manuscripts have appeared in Magn Reson Med in calendar year 2025. I want to thank our dedicated group of expert reviewers who helped us identify and hone these papers. We now publish annually on the journal home page the list of reviewers as a small thank you to them, and will soon by placing the ‘2025 Referee List’ on the web site, recognising the approximately 1000 loyal reviewers for the journal. I would also like to thank our cohort of Deputy Editors and Associate Editors, as well as the members of the Editorial Board, who have given their services to the Society journal.

2025 has also seen a further growth in the proportion of Open Access papers in Magn Reson Med. This year’s increase is probably driven in large part by the recent NIH mandate that has impacted the publication choice that US federally-funded authors make. If current trends continue then at least 80% of the journal’s output will be Open Access in 2026. This is relative to a figure of 5% as recently as 2015. Wiley as publisher, and ISMRM as journal owner, will need to monitor these trends, as ultimately they may affect the viability of remaining a hybrid journal. One further statistic that authors may be interested in is that the level of downloads of Open Access papers is approximately double that of papers that remain behind the paywall.

Meanwhile, happy reading, and season’s greetings.

Best wishes,

Peter Jezzard, PhD

HEADLINES

Don’t forget to keep checking Study Group Virtual Special Issues that can be found at the journal homepage. Most ISMRM Study Groups have created Virtual Special Issues, with the aim of summarising the latest research in these topic areas. The idea is to update these at least annually to ensure that they remain “living documents” and hopefully will be a valuable resource to Study Group members. We have recently added or updated ones from the Pulmonary MR Study Group; the Quantitative MR Study Group; the Placental and Fetal MRI Study Group; the MR in Radiation Therapy Study Group; and the Motion Detection and Correction Study Group!
In partnership with the Reproducible Research Study Group (RRSG) we offer authors the option of a Code Review of any code they provide in a Data Availability Statement. If authors request it in their cover letter, the RRSG will download the code and check that it installs and can be run. For details see here and an editorial on the experiences of the first year of its use here.

DECEMBER ISSUE

Attached you will find, in PDF format, the Magnetic Resonance in Medicine Table of Contents (TOC) for the Volume 94, Number 6, December 2025 issue. Additionally, clicking on a title in the attached PDF will take you directly to its abstract. To view the entire article, please use either your log-in information for the Wiley website or your institutional access. Note that many papers in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine are published as Open Access articles and can be freely downloaded by anyone.

December’s Cover Art: This month’s cover art is from:

Time-resolved mapping of myocardial stiffness using 2D multifrequency spiral MR elastography with and without external vibration, by Matthias S. Anders, Carsten Warmuth, Tom Meyer, Helge Herthum, Mehrgan Shahryari, Jakob Schattenfroh, Corona Metz, Jan Bieling, Josef Pfeuffer, Simon Veldhoen, Jeanette Schulz-Menger, Tobias Schaeffter, Jing Guo, Heiko Tzschätzsch, Ingolf Sack

December’s Editor’s Picks: Each month, we highlight articles from the current issue that might be of particular interest to our readers. The articles will be available online to anyone for a period of two years, regardless of their subscription status. This month’s selections are:

FEATURES

*The MRM Highlights Magazine, Volume 10, is available online!

Recent Q&A articles and special features:

Selection: Open Science Initiative for Perfusion Imaging (OSIPI)

Q&A with the OSIPI Leadership: Laura Bell, Ben Dickie, Petra Houdt, Henk Mutsaerts, and Yuriko Suzuki

Selection: Wirelessly interfacing sensor-equipped implants and MR scanners for improved safety and imaging

Selection: Fast measurement of the gradient system transfer function at 7 T

Special Features:

YIA submissions for the 2027 ISMRM Annual Meeting in Vancouver, BC, Canada

The International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine announces the competition for the Young Investigator Awards for the ISMRM & ISMRT Annual Meeting & Exhibition, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, 08-13 May 2027. The deadline to submit a manuscript for the competition is 11 September 2026. For more information about the YIA competition, please visit here.

Full Issue PDFs

Full Issue PDFs are now available for download. Please follow the link available at the journal home page. You will be prompted for your ISMRM login information.

LINKS OF INTEREST

December Articles
Early View
ISMRM Journal Page
Journal Home Page
Highlights Page
Highlights Print Supplements, including: