Use of Artificial Intelligence

RELART adheres to the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and to the good practices promoted by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in scientific communication.

Scope

The use of AI systems — particularly those with generative capabilities (language models, image generation, or automated data analysis tools) — must be explicitly disclosed whenever they have been involved in any stage of manuscript preparation, including:

  • Writing, editing, or proofreading of texts.
  • Translation or reformulation of content.
  • Data analysis, processing, or visualization.
  • Generation of images, figures, tables, or other resources.
  • Support in literature review or information synthesis.

Author Responsibility

The use of AI tools does not replace authorship or intellectual responsibility. Authors are fully responsible for:

  • The accuracy, completeness, and originality of the content.
  • The verification of data, citations, and references.
  • The absence of biases, errors, or fabricated information.

Authors must clearly state which tools were used, for what purpose, and to what extent they were involved in the development of the work.

The automatic generation of scientific content without human supervision or critical validation is not permitted.

Transparency

Information on the use of AI must be included in the manuscript in the appropriate section according to its type of use:

  • When used for writing or editing, it must be disclosed in the Acknowledgements section.
  • When used for data analysis, generation of results, or figures, it must be described in the Methodology section.

Peer Review

Reviewers must not use AI tools that could compromise the confidentiality of the manuscript. If support tools are employed, reviewers may not delegate academic evaluation or the issuance of their assessment to them.

Ethical Principles

The following are considered improper practices:

  • The generation of nonexistent content, data, or references.
  • The manipulation of images or results using AI without explicit disclosure.
  • The concealment of AI tool usage.

The improper use of these technologies may be considered an ethical violation and may result in manuscript rejection or other editorial measures.

Use and Disclosure of AI Tools

At the time of submission, authors must declare whether they have used artificial intelligence tools and describe their use. This information may be included in the cover letter and must also appear in the manuscript in the appropriate section.

AI tools must not be regarded as primary sources of scientific knowledge or as authors of the work. Any mention of them must be limited to methodological or descriptive purposes.

Example (methodological use)

  1. OpenAI. ChatGPT (version of July 15, 2023) [large language model]. San Francisco (CA): OpenAI; 2023 [cited 2026 Mar 24]. Available from: https://chat.openai.com

Example of in-text citation

"…an artificial intelligence tool was used for writing assistance (1)."