Book excerpt: Handbook of Behavioral State Control: Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms provides the first synthesis of information on the neurobiology of behavioral states, ranging from normal stress and sleep deprivation to debilitating neuropsychiatric disorders. This book presents a working reference on the cellular and molecular mechanisms generating arousal states; pharmacological and non-pharmacological methods of behavioral state control; and the bi-directional interaction between arousal state and the neurobiology of pain, and between sleep and the immune system.