As a source of information on neuroanatomical research methods this Volume is not without precedent. In 1957, at the initiative of Dr. W. F. Windle, a conference was held at the National Institutes of Health, the proceedings of which, edited by Dr. Windle and published by C. C. Thomas under the title "New Research Tech niques of Neuroanatomy," rapidly became something like a standard reference in the field of Neuromorphology. The present editors were emboldened to seek support for a second expose of contemporary research methods in Neuroanatomy by the success of this earlier publication, as well as by the consideration that the years elapsed since its appearance have been, perhaps, more productive of new research methods and strategies in Neuroanatomy than were any dozen consecutive years since the golden decades of the 1870's and 1880's. The decision, which methods to include in this conference, has been a difficult one. For reasons of space alone it would have been impossible to do equal justice to techniques approaching the brain as a neuronal system, the brain as a tissue, or the neuron as a cell. As a brief inspection of the contents of this volume will show, the weight of choice fell upon the first of these alternatives. The reader will find, further more, that not all of the book is devoted to new methods in the strict sense."

I received my first introduction to the brain sciences in 1936 and 1937, for me the second and third years of the 7-year medical school curriculum at the University of Leiden. During those years my interest in the subject was aroused in particular by the brilliant lectures of the physiologist G. C. Rademaker - a prominent former member of the Rudolf Magnus school - and the neurohistologist S. T. Bok, noted especially for his histometric studies of the cerebral cortex. Fascinated as I was by everything I learned about the brain from these outstanding teachers, toward the end of their courses I began to notice conspicuous gaps that separated neurophysiology from neuroanatomy. In fact, I could (or thought I could) detect a reasonable concordance between the two sciences only in case of some sensory and somatic-motor systems. For most other functions anatomical substrates seemed either poorly defined or, as in the case of the central viscero-endocrine system, hardly recognized at all. With all the arrogance of which a 20-year old student is capable I concluded that what the brain sciences needed was a new and more complete anatomy that emphasized in particular the continuity of, and convergences or interconnections between individual conduction systems. And I wistfully mused that perhaps at some time in the future I could make such an endeavour part of my own career.