New perspectives for the action of steroids in the brain

The present special issue of the Journal of Neuroendocrinology comprises a collection of some of the lectures presented at the 9th International Meeting on Steroids and the Nervous System, held in February 2017. These reviews provide an update on the state of the art of recent discoveries in 3 main fields of current research con- cerning the role of neuroactive steroids in the brain, with special emphasis on brain development and sexual differentiation, the cel- lular and molecular mechanisms involved in the action of neuroac- tive steroids, and clinical implications for the understanding of brain disease and for the potential therapeutic use of these molecules or their analogues.