Cerebral Signal Transduction / Contemporary Neuroscience (PDF)

In Cerebral Signal Transduction: From First to Fourth Messengers, Maarten E.A. Reith and a team of leading experts comprehensively review and synthesize the most recent advances in our understanding of the role of cerebral signaling in neuronal and cerebral function. The authors emphasize the functional role of the various signaling pathways in memory, apoptosis and degeneration, depression, and drug dependence in both health and diseases states. The signaling pathways discussed include cAMP/PKA, Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase, DAG/PKG, and neurotrophic factor signaling cascades. By taking full advantage of the newfound ability to selectively remove, reduce, or enhance specific components of the signaling pathways, the investigators writing here illuminate the varied signaling cascades, their crosstalk, and the many possibilities for changes in gene expression underlying long-term changes in brain function.

Cutting-edge and comprehensive, Cerebral Signal Transduction: From First to Fourth Messengers advances our understanding of the mechanistic underpinnings of complex behavioral processes and clinically relevant brain diseases. A major contribution to the development of the novel pharmacotherapeutics targeting downstream events in the cascade of second, third, and fourth messengers, it will serve experimental and clinical neuroscientists as today's best and most complete guide to neuronal signaling.