Preface At the meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in 2009, Drs. Hari Subramanian and Gert Holstege were asked by the international committee of the Oxford Conference to organize the XIIth Oxford Conference in The Netherlands. The first Oxford Conference was held in September 1978 at the University Laboratory of Physiology in Oxford (UK). Already at that time, there was a passionate discussion about whether respiration was the result of pacemaker cells or a neuronal system. The same discussion is still going on.

The organizers of the XIIth Oxford Conference decided to keep the meeting in a location that was easy to reach from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, but still outside large cities, which resulted in the Theaterhotel in Almelo in the East of The Netherlands. The owners, Han and Marianne Hammink and their staff, have done all that was necessary to make this meeting a great success. They even invited us to their home where we spent a wonderful night with a delicious dinner under the starry sky. We want to cordially thank them for their efforts. In 4 days, a total of 52 oral presentations were given, among which were plenary lectures of Sten Grillner, Diethelm Richter, Gert Holstege, and William Milsom. Furthermore, in several sessions also 39 poster presentations were given. More than 100 neuroscientists participated in the meeting.

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The organizers received many e-mails to thank them for the organization of this meeting in Almelo and several participants told us that they were looking at their own work differently. This volume, The Central Nervous System Control of Respiration, is the first of two volumes in Progress in Brain Research with the first 20 chapters of the participants. The following volume will present the following 21 chapters. We hope that not only the Almelo conference but also the resulting chapters will give a better insight into how many brain regions control respiration. Gert Holstege Caroline M. Beers Hari H. Subramanian