Gap Junctions

The objective in editing this volume was twofold: to provide a reasoned overview of the field as well as to furnish one that provided this overview within the context of the intellectual boundaries of those who initially attempted to define the purview of gap junction research. The latter objective has been realized by selecting the topics for review in this volume. The former objective was achieved by securing the cooperation of leaders in their fields as chapter co-authors.

"Because the field of gap junctions is so broad, the most one book can accomplish is to present well written summaries that direct the reader to the primary literature. In this regard Hertzberg and coauthors have done an admirable job. ...Importantly, each of the chapters discusses what isn't known or is controversial about the topic at hand, information that is often missing from the journal literature. Another attractive feature is that each review is written by two authors representing different laboratories and often quite different viewpoints. For those within the gap junction community, it is interesting to observe how potentially contentious issues are negotiated. While the majority of readers will be unaware of the implications of these author pairings, they will nonetheless profit from the fact that in most cases the biases of individual researchers are deemphasized, giving a more balanced view than is sometimes the case in the secondary literature."—Cell