This volume of Advances in Anatomy, Embryology and Cell Biol ogy is based on material assembled by Dr. Jaap H.R. Schoen. Dr. Schoen was born in Balikpapan, Indonesia, in 1930 and died in Corsica in 1981 during a diving holiday. Dr. Schoen was a neu rologist at the Diaconessen Ziekenhuis in The Hague, The Neth erlands, and combined his clinical work with a partial tenureship as associated professor in the Department of Neuroanatomy (now the Neuroregulation group) of the Leiden Medical Faculty. For 20 years Dr. Schoen collected pathological specimens from patients with brain disease and together with his technical assistant, Mr. Stins, a large number of Haggqvist, Nauta, and Nissl or Kliiver series were prepared. Little of the studied mate rial has been published. Articles appeared in several journals (Progress in Brain Research, Psychiatria Neurologia, and Neuro chirurgia), but since Dr. Schoen also actively participated in the meetings of the Dutch Anatomical Society, a series of short com munications can be found in the former Acta Morphologica Neer lando-Scandinavica (now the European Journal of Morphology). A list of Schoen's publications has been appended to this preface. Numerous scientists have consulted Schoen's material and, recently, Dr. Jan Voogd published a chapter on the human cere bellum in Paxinos' "The Human Nervous System" (1990) that is based partially on Schoen's material. The Leiden neuroregulation group decided to restore Schoen's material and to publish the manuscripts he left behind."