The ADNI Publication Policy: commensurate recognition of critical contributors who are not authors.

An efficient approach to certain types of biomedical research requires a scale that precludes involvement of all critical contributors in all aspects of experimental design, execution, and as well as writing of most, if not all, derived works. Guarantors of both the integrity of the data and of its subsequent analyses are required. When separate groups are responsible for each of these activities, each should be readily identifiable both in the primary publication and in all subsequent citations. We describe the publication policy of the Alzheimer Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), its origins and its acceptance by the editorial and scientific communities.