The last ten years has witnessed a resurgence of interest in
stereotactic surgery although this has been mainly in the field of the
comparatively simple stereotactic biopsy of intracranial tumours. There
is also evidence of a returning interest in functional neurosurgery
other than pain which has always sustained high levels of endeavour. The
present work comprises selected papers from a much larger group of
interesting and important communications to the European Society for
Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery. They represent modern views on
a wide variety of stereotactic surgical topics from internationally
acclaimed experts in this field. The neurosurgeon who has little or no
acquaintance with this fruitful sub-specialty will be surprised to find
very broad applications of the technique which is gradually replacing
many con- ventional neurosurgical procedures. This is particularly
evident in the papers on tumours but there is also a section on the
treatment of vascular disease which marks an extension of neurosurgical
practice. The Society has always regarded technical advances as
important and some of the most recent devel- opments appear in this
book. Finally, an exciting new development of neural transplantation
marks the beginning of what may be an important part of neurological
surgery in the future.