Overview
- Editors:
-
-
Carlo Ferrarese
-
Department of Neurology and Neuroscience, University of Milano-Bicocca, Monza (Milano), Italy
-
M. Flint Beal
-
Department of Neurology and Neuroscience, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, USA
Access this book
Other ways to access
Table of contents (19 chapters)
-
-
Introduction and Historical Notes
-
-
Basic Mechanisms
-
-
- Daniela Rossi, Paola Bezzi, Maria Domercq, Liliana Brambilla, Jacopo Meldolesi, Andrea Volterra
Pages 13-26
-
- Danbolt N C, Holmseth S, Skår A, Lehre K P, Furness D N
Pages 27-49
-
- Fabrizio Gardoni, Flaminio Cattabeni, Monica Di Luca
Pages 51-63
-
- Maria Passafaro, Carlo Sala
Pages 65-77
-
- Valeria Bruno, Giuseppe Battaglia, Ferdinando Nicoletti
Pages 79-102
-
-
Acute and Chronic Neurological Disorders
-
Front Matter
Pages 135-135
-
-
- Domenico E. Pellegrini-Giampietro, Elena Meli, Flavio Moroni
Pages 171-188
-
- Niklas Marklund, John F. Stover, Tracy K. McIntosh
Pages 189-215
-
- Tiziana Mennini, Caterina Bendotti
Pages 217-227
-
- Antonio Pisani, Paolo Calabresi
Pages 229-242
-
-
-
- Judyth Sassoon, Filmore Banks, David R. Brown
Pages 263-283
-
- David Pitt, Cedric S. Raine
Pages 285-303
-
- Marcus Kaul, Stuart A. Lipton
Pages 305-315
About this book
It can be reasonably anticipated that, over the next generations, the proportion of elderly people will remarkably increase and, with this, the number ofpersons suffering from acute (e.g. cerebral ischemia) or chronic neurodegenerative disorders. To date, approved drugs only alleviate the symptoms ofthese diseases (for instance, acetylcholinesterase inhibitors in Alzheimer disease and L-dopa and dopamine-agonists in Parkinson disease), while none seems to stop the progression of the degenerative processes underlying them. The development of effective preventive or protective therapies has been impeded by the limitations of our knowledge of the causes and the mechanisms by which neurons die in neurodegenerative disorders. Evidence accumulated in the past 20 years indicated that the major excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate may play a role as neurotoxin in several conditions. In particular, the glutamatergic system dysfunction seems to be an early event working as a common pathway in the pathogenesis ofa large number ofacute and chronic neurological disorders, in strict conjunction with other important mechanisms, such as oxidative stress and energetic failure, and probably triggered by different mechanisms in various diseases. In consideration of that, drug discovery efforts over the last decade have been focused on the search for drugs that either reduce glutamate synaptic levels or block its postsynaptic effects. Despite numerous reviews on basic mechanisms and clinical aspects ofthe excitotoxic phenomenon, so far no comprehensive book has covered the topic in all its complexity, starting from basic pharmacological mechanisms, to .animal models of diseases and finally to clinical pathogenic and therapeutic implications.
Editors and Affiliations
-
Department of Neurology and Neuroscience, University of Milano-Bicocca, Monza (Milano), Italy
Carlo Ferrarese
-
Department of Neurology and Neuroscience, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, USA
M. Flint Beal
