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There is no doubt that a major problem of present day research workers, especially in the life sciences, is the plethora of publications of all kinds, abstracts, short communications, full papers in journals of varying quality, reviews and proceedings of symposia with, in addition, an unprecedented duplication of publications. Even for experts working in the field, it is almost impossible to keep an up-to-date view of all current research articles. The Western grant and career system encourages scientists to publish as much as possible. The editors and publishers of our new series are convinced that the format of Current Topics in Neuroendocrinology leads a way out of this confusion. Each volume is conceived as a concise up-to-date textbook on one well-defined and currently exciting subject. Different from classic textbooks, however, the speed of publication compares favorably with that of many journals; this ensures an immediacy which is im possible in textbooks. On the other hand, topics to be included in this series are also sufficiently reliable, with enough work being done to treat them from several aspects. Each volume will supply four to six chapfers treating such a broad topic as neuroendocrinology from several points of view, for example, anatomic, electrophysiologic, endocrine and behavioral views. Wh~re clinical data are immediately available, they will be included. No other 36Iles treating the nervous or endocrine systems provides such a coordinated set of chapters on an interesting topic in each volume.