The first two editions of this title had a tremendous impact in neuroscience. Between the Second edition in 1989 and today, there has been an explosion of information in the field, including advances in molecular techniques, such as genomics and proteomics, which have become increasing important in neuroscience. A renaissance in fluorescence has occurred, driven by the development of new probes, new microscopes, live imagers, and computer processing. The introduction of new markers has enormously stimulated the field, moving it from tissue culture to neurophysiology to functional MRI techniques.

The present monograph is an imaginative and courageous attempt to provide a synthesis of knowledge concerning the af- ferent connections of the medial basal hypothalamus. Only somebody who has lived through most of the explosive develop- ment - over the last 25 years or so - in the neuroscience in general, and in hypothalamic functional neuroanatomy in parti- cular, can fully appreciate the remarkably consistent picture emerging from this study. The writer of this foreword was (alas!) an active participant in the very early and premature, and also largely naive, attempts to penetrate the "jungle" of hypothalamic connections with degeneration methods when they first became available in the late 1930s. (I have told a part of this rather pathetic story is an autobiographical sketch in Pioneers in Neuroendocrinology [Meites et aI. , (eds) (1975), Vol I. Plenum] because I was sufficiently self-critical not to publish my early results. ) Even with the suppressive Nauta-type silver stains, introduced in the mid-1950s, studies of hypothala- mic connections had only marginal results, which the reader will certainly appreciate if he compares the relevant figures in the first edition of Hypothalamic Control of the Anterior Pituitary [Szentagothai et al. (1962) Akademiai Kiad6, Budapest], with Dr. Zaborszky's concluding diagrams. The approach used by Dr. Zaborszky of combining the more advanced Fink-Heimer type degeneration techniques, and some of their most recent modifications by Gallyas et al.