For 31 years <strong>Progress in Psychobiology and Physiological Psychology</strong> hasprovided cuttingedge literature to behavioral neuroscience research. Vol... » 

For 31 years Progress in Psychobiology and Physiological Psychology hasprovided cuttingedge literature to behavioral neuroscience research. Volume 18includes four original chapters covering a broad range of contemporary topicsin behavioral neuroscience. In the first of these Alan Rosenwasser skillfullyreviews the current status of the rapidly developing field of circadianneurobiology. He focuses on the mammalian suprachiasmatic nucleus systememphasizing inputs to the clock their neurochemical phenotype and outputsfrom the clock to behavioral and other effector systems. Another virtue ofthis chapter is its integration of current data and organizing principles drawnfrom the analysis of nonvertebrates species and cellular system. Next LoriFlanaganCatos essay focuses on the neuroendocrine controls of femalereproductive behavior in the rat. She first reviews research from her ownlaboratory that utilizes pseudorabies viral tract tracing to identify pathwaysfrom the VMH through the periaqueductal gray medullary reticulospinal andterminating on motor neurons in lumbar ventral horn that innervate the femaleflank muscles. She then goes on to describe more recent experiments suggestingthat estrogen may modulate the synaptic strength of this circuit by controllingdendritic spines on neurons intrinsic to the VMH as well as those that projectto lordosis relevant brain circuitry. The elucidation of these estrogeninducedchanges within a defined neural circuit emphasizes why the study of lordosiscontinues to be one of the best models to investigate hormones and theireffects on behavior.The last few years have witnessed unprecedented advances in our understandingofthe neurobiological controls of feeding behavior. This period of rapiddiscovery was ushered in by the identification of leptin as an adiposityhormone that acts in the brain to control food intake and energy expenditurecommensurate with fat stores. Since its discovery «