This issue completes volume 40 of Neuropsychopharmacology (NPP), with the first issue published in December, 1987. This should be distinguished from our 40th anniversary; for the first several years, issues were thin, months were skipped, and multiple volumes were published per year. To commemorate this accomplishment, the editor-in-chief (Dr Carlezon) asked me as in-coming ACNP President to write a brief overview of my views on the developments in our field over this time period, using highly cited articles published in NPP as a guide.

Early on, two articles highlight themes that continue today. One is the development of animal models for psychiatric illnesses. Markou and Koob (1991) developed an animal model of the depression or anhedonia that accompanies cocaine withdrawal, with the drug being self-administered. The use of intracranial-self stimulation (ICSS) thresholds revealed them to be elevated during cocaine withdrawal, with this being interpreted as an ‘anhedonic’ state due to a desensitization of the reward pathways mediating ICSS reward. The establishment of this model enabled studies to try to understand the neurochemical mechanisms underlying a specific aspect of cocaine withdrawal, with this search continuing to the present.

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