Psychoneuroendocrine Imaging: a special issue of psychoneuroendocrinology.

摘要

This special issue of PNEC, Psychoneuroendocrine Imaging, draws the attention of the readers to the field of hormones and neuroimaging, with emphasis on research in humans. Human Psychoneuroendocrine Imaging is thriving in the social, affective.and clinical neurosciences. There has been a more than 10-fold increase in the amount of scientific articles published on this topic since the turn of the century. Nonetheless, this is only the beginning, as researchers from neuroscience, psychology and endocrinology are increasingly grasping the enormous potential of Psychoneuroendocrine Imaging. Indeed, it is well known, from especially animal research, that hormones and hormonal mechanisms play a crucial role in brain development and function (e.g., Simerly, 2002; Kirsch et al, 2005), and techniques such as structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) therefore hold great potential.