Abstract: Over the past year the Journal of Comparative Neurology (JCN) completed the implementation of its new layout, style, and overall design, that was introduced by our publisher, John Wiley & Sons, for many of its science journals. The new style offers an enhanced legibility of the journal's content and maintains the very high quality of illustrations that characterizes JCN. In parallel, we continued to streamline our guidelines to make the submission procedures easier for our contributors, including authors who desire to transfer papers from other journals that use a different manuscript format, in keeping with our goal to publish top-quality research papers and reviews that have an impact on the field of neuroscience. It is worthwhile to note that authors can submit review-quality figures to JCN, with the expectation that publication-quality material be submitted upon acceptance. It is our goal to encourage submissions to JCN, without the barriers authors experienced in the past. In 2018, continuing our initiative to highlight important neuroscience topics in JCN through Special Issues, we focused on completing several on-going projects. We begin by opening the 2019 volume with a Special Issue on the structure and function of the vertebrate retina that was assembled under the leadership of Andrew Huberman (Stanford University), an Associate Editor of JCN. We are also very pleased to dedicate this special issue to Harvey Karten for his outstanding contributions to the functional anatomy of the retina and visual pathways in vertebrates, and for being one of the journal's leading contributor and supporter. Two other special issues are near completion, one edited by Jon Kaas to honor the late Vivien Casagrande, who has been a wonderful member of the JCN community throughout her career. The other follows from a successful special issue published in 2016 that contained papers from the first conference on cortical evolution, organized by Veronica Martinez-Cerdeño. Veronica held a second conference in 2018 in the Canaries Islands and many of these presentations will be edited in a special issue to appear in 2019. Our fourth special issue project will highlight emerging, cutting-edge developments in mouse brain imaging. It was initiated by Shawn Mikula. Shawn was appointed to the Editorial Board of JCN in 2018, and, with characteristic enthusiasm, he immediately volunteered to put together this special issue and recruited outstanding investigators to provide papers that would broadly cover trending approaches to mouse brain imaging. It is my very sad duty to report the sudden passing of Shawn last summer. We lost one of neuroscience rising scholars and a wonderful colleague. The mouse brain imaging special issue will be edited in his honor by some of the contributors and myself and will be published in 2019. As always, we are extremely grateful for the commitment and efforts of the contributors and Guest Editors of these special issues that reflect the continued involvement of our journal in promoting novelty and scholarship in the study of the functional anatomy of the nervous system. In addition, we are pleased to announce an initiative to expand the scope of interests of JCN in 2019. Our journal's main focus is systems neuroscience, although we do not intend to define this narrowly. In fact the concept of “comparative neurology”, firmly part of the journal's original name, implies a broad umbrella of interests that encompasses the study of pathological conditions and models of brain diseases. This latter area has been less represented among the contributed papers to the journal in recent years and we are launching a project aiming to recruit more submissions in animal models of neuropsychiatric disorders. None of this would happen without the tireless dedication of our Associate Editors and members of the Editorial Board who are advisors to the Editor, and serve as JCN's ambassadors in the neuroscience community. Our Board counts now 50 members, and every year the Editors elect new members and may reappoint some of the previous Board members. This year we are welcoming four new members to our Board, Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel, Dr. Mary Ann Raghanti, Dr. Marcello Rosa, and Dr. Zhengang Yang. We look forward to their contributions during their service on the Board. In this context, I had the pleasure of presenting the 2018 Sanford L. Palay Award in Structural Neuroscience at the Cajal Club Social during the Society for Neuroscience Meeting in San Diego, to one of our distinguished Editorial Board members, Dr. Kristen M. Harris, from the University of Texas at Austin, for her outstanding contributions to our understanding of synaptic structure and function in health and disease. This award was presented on the behalf of JCN and its publisher, John Wiley & Sons. We are also most grateful to our Publishing Editor, Melissa Asaro, for her constant efforts managing, improving, and promoting our journal, and to our management team, Erica Byrd and Kathrina Borromeo, who oversee the processing of submissions and special issues, work closely with our contributors and our production team, ensuring that our day-to-day operations run smoothly. Finally, I extend my deep gratitude to the many colleagues, listed below, who participated in the peer-review process of manuscripts for the journal in 2018. As always, our journal can maintain its high standards of quality and its reputation only through their scholarly dedication and professional expertise. Adams, Michael Ahnelt, Peter K. Ai, Hiroyuki Aicher, Sue Aizawa, Hidenori Alheid, George Allen, Charles Allison, W. Ted Alloway, Kevin Alsina, Berta Alvarez, Francisco Anadon, Ramon Andrade, Rodrigo Angelov, Doychin Angelucci, Alessandra Antal, Miklosrad Anton, Eva Apicella, Alfonso Arckens, Lutgarde Armstrong, Caren Arnsten, Amy Arroyo, Edgardo J. Auld, Vanessa Azim, Eiman Badaut, Jerome Baird, Emily Baizer, Joan Baldwin, Mary Bales, Karen Balthazart, Jacques Baram, Tallie Z. Bartlett, Edward Basso, Michele Baxter, Mark Benson, Deanna Berg, Bente Berridge, Kent Berthoud, Hans-Rudolf Biagini, Giuseppe Bickford, Martha E Biederer, Thomas Bigiani, Albertino Birman, Serge Bjaalie, Jan Bjorklund, Anders Blackshaw, Seth Bodznick, David Bornstein, Joel Borrell, Victor Bottjer, Sarah Bourne, James Bourne, Jennifer Braford, Mark Briggs, Farran Brown, Rosemary Bruner, Emiliano Brunjes, Peter Budinger, Eike Buonanno, Andres Caldwell, Heather Campbell, Polly Cant, Nell Casanova, Christian Casanova, Manuel Celio, Marco Cenci-Nilsson, Angela charli, jean-louis Chedotal, Alain Chen, Bin Chen, Li Min chrobak, james Chubykin, Alexander Coen, Clive Coimbra, João Colognato, Holly Colombo, Jorge Cookson, Mark Coon, Steven Cornil, Charlotte Counts, Scott Covey, Ellen Crockett, D.P. Cunningham, J. Thomas Dacks, Andrew Dallman, Julia Dawson, Valina de Bivort, Benjamin De Camilli, Pietro De Carlos, Juan De Lucia, Marzia Deans, Michael Dehay, Colette Delville, Yvon Derby, Charles Desimone, Robert Desplan, Claude Dhande, Onkar Dickson, Tracey Dietrich, W. Dalton Disney, Anita DonCarlos, Lydia Donner, Kristian Dudek, Serena Dumitriu, Dani Dymecki, Susan Edds-Walton, Peggy L. Ekker, Marc Elphick, Maurice Elsworth, John Erisir, Alev Erskine, Lynda Eschenko, Oxana Etherington, Sarah J. Evrard, Henry Fairen, Alfonso Felmy, Felix Fernyhough, Paul Finger, Thomas Fletcher, Erica Flores, Gonzalo Folgueira, Mónica Forti, Lia Fox, Michael French, Catherine Frost, William Fuller, David D. Furness, John Gahr, Manfred Gaillard, Dany Gallio, Marco Galve-Roperh, Ismael Garcia, M. L. Garcia-Marin, Virginia Gaspar, Jeleky Ge, Shaoyu German, Dwight Geula, Changiz Gilette, Rhanor Goldowitz, Dan Gray, Jason Greer, Charles Gremel, Christina Grillner, Sten Gronenberg, Wulfila Güntürkün, Onur Haider, Bilal Hajihosseini, Mohammad Hammond, Donna Handa, Robert Hannibal, Jens Hartenstein, Volker Hayes, Matt Hay-Schmidt, Anders Hedwig, Berthold Helfrich-Förster, Charlotte Hengen, Keith Herculano-Houzel, Suzana Herman, James Hermey, Guido Hibi, Masahiko Higashijima, Shin-ichi Hodge, Rebecca D. Hof, Patrick Holmes, Melissa Holstege, Gert Homberg, Uwe Horton, Jonathan Horton, Jonathan C. Horvath, Tamas Huberman, Andrew Hülsmann, Swen Huntley, George W. Huttner, Wieland B. Ikegama, Taro Ikemoto, Satoshi Illig, Kurt Ishida, Andrew Ivanusic, Jason Iwaniuk, Andrew Jackson, Rob Jarvis, Erich Jeff, Riffell jennings, kimberly Johnson, Frank Jones, Theresa A. Juavinett, Ashley Juliano, Sharon Kaas, Jon Kaczmarek, Leonard Kamikouchi, Azusa Kanoski, Scott Karten, Harvey Kastner, Sabine Kawakami, Koichi Kawasaki, Hiroshi Kawata, Mitsuhiro Kay, Jeremy Khan, Arshad Khodosevich, Konstantin Kidd, Grahame Kinoshita, Junzo Kinoshita, Michiyo Klimaschewski, Lars Koike, Masato Kovacs, K. Kreissl, Sabine Kritzer, Mary Krubitzer, Leah Kuba, Hiroshi Laberge, Frederic Land, Michael Lauterborn, Julie Leergaard, Trygve Lehman, Michael Lemon, Roger Lin, Wensheng Lingor, Paul Liu, Qing-Song Llano, Daniel Llewellyn-Smith, Ida Longo, Frank M. Luhmann, Heiko Lyon, David Ma, Qiufu MacDonald, Matthew Maier, Alexander Maler, Leonard Malmierca, Manuel Manger, Paul Marin, oscar Martin, John Martin, Paul Martinez, Salvador Maruska, Karen Mathur, Brian May, Paul McCarthy, Margaret McClay, david Mcdonald, Alexander McKemy, David McKinley, Michael McMullan, Simon Medina, Loreta Meech, Robert Meinertzhagen, Ian Mello, Claudio Mercuri, Nicola B Meshul, Charles Mesulam, Marek-Marsel Mikula, Shawn (DECEASED) Miller, Jeffrey Milner, Teresa Mirzadeh, Zaman Mitchell, Jude Miyawaki, Atsushi Mohlin, Camilla Møller, Morten Molnar, Zoltan Moore, Robert Y. Moorman, David Morawski, Markus Morecraft, Robert Moreno, Nerea Mpodozis, Jorge Muñoz-Cueto, Jose A. Myers, Martin Myoga, Michael Namiki, Shigehiro Naneix, Fabien Napper, Ruth Nässel, Dick Nauhaus, Ian Neubauer, Simon Neuhauss, Stephan Nicholson, Dan Niimura, Yoshihito Nitsch, Cordula Noctor, Stephen Nunez, Alexa O'Donnell, Sean Oertel, Donata Ogawa, Satoshi O'Halloran, Ken D. Ohno, Nobuhiko Okamoto, Hitoshi Okuno, Hiroyuki Oosthuizen, Maria Orman, Rena Orr, Miranda Osborne, Peregrine Osten, Pavel Ott, Swidbert Palomero-Gallagher, Nicola Papadaki, Efrosini Parent, Martin Perkel, David Person, Abigail Pessoa, Luiz Petry, Heywood Pickard, Gary Pierchala, Brian Pittman, Quentin Pombal, Manuel Poole, Daniel Powers, Alice Prevot, Vincent Price, David Pritz, Michael Puelles, Luis Pushchin, Igor Puthussery, Teresa Radim, Sumbera Raghanti, Mary Ann Ragsdale, Clifton Rantamäki, Tomi Rapp, Peter Rattenborg, Niels Raymond, Pamela Reese, Benjamin Reiner, Anton Reser, David Restrepo, Diego Rice, Margaret Richards, Linda Rieff, Dierk Riley, Bruce B Rind, F. Claire Risold, Pierre-Yves Robinson, Jane Rodrigo Albors, Aida Rodráguez-Moldes, Isabel Rosa, Marcello Roth, Gerhard Rouyer, François Rubel, Edwin Rubenstein, John Ruegg, Markus Ruigrok, Tom Rushmore, R. Russo, Raúl Rybak, Jürgen Sachse, Silke Sanes, Joshua Saper, Clifford Sasaki, Mitsuyoshi Sawamoto, Kazunobu Schlinger, Barney Schlossmacher, Michael Schmidt, Joachim Schofield, Brett Schonewille, Martijn Schumann, Cynthia Schwartz, Gary Schwartz, Gregory Schwarzacher, Stephan Schwob, James Selzer, Michael Sessle, Barry Shafer, Orie Sharkey, Keith Shea, Thomas Sheeba, Vasu Shehab, Safa Aldeen Shepherd, Jason Sherwood, Chet Shi, Song-Hai Shibutani, Makoto Shimogori, Tomomi Shinomiya, Kazunori Shipley, Michael Siegenthaler, Julie Sillitoe, Roy Silver, Debra Simo, Rafael Sincich, Lawrence Sliwa, Julia Slomianka, Lutz Smith, Phillip Smith, Yoland Soares, Juliana Somoza, Gustavo Song, Mi-Ryoung Speer, Colenso Spires-Jones, Tara Sprengel, Rolf Stabio, Maureen Stafford, Benjamin Steinbusch, Harry Stell, William Stewart, Bryan Stieger, Bruno Stolzberg, Daniel Strand, Christine Subhedar, Nishikant Sucena, Elio Sullivan, Patrick Sulzer, David Sur, Mriganka Tabuchi, Akiko Takahashi, Jun Thiele, Alexander Thompson, John Tian, Ning Todd, Andrew Tomioka, Kenji Torner, Luz Travers, Susan Triplett, Jason W. Tripodi, Marco Tseng, Kuei Tubingen, Henry Usrey, W. Martin Valdez, Gregorio Vanden Broeck, Jozef Vaucher, Elvire Verkhratsky, Alexj Vertes, Robert Vigh, Jozsef Vilaro, Teresa Volkoff, Helene Volpicelli, Laura Wang, Quanxin Warburton, Clea Watakabe, Akiya Watson, Charles R Watts, Alan Wei, Wei Wei, Youzhen White, Benjamin Whitlock, Kathleen Widmer, Hans Williams, Megan Williams, Stephen Wirths, Oliver Wisden, William Witzemann, Veit Wolfe, John Wolff, Mathieu Wolff, Tanya Wu, Doris Wullimann, Mario Wylie, Douglas Xie, Fang Xu, Xiangmin Xu, Ying Yamamoto, Naoyuki Yang, Zhengang Yoshii, Taishi Younes, Kyan Yu, Xiang Zahm, Daniel Zeng, Jinsheng Zhang, Yong Q. Zhang, Zheng Gang Zhou, Min *Includes Reviewers who have completed reviews between November 1, 2017 and October 31, 2018