Pathogenesis of Neurodegenerative Disorders / Contemporary Neuroscience (PDF)

Recent scientific advances have dramatically expanded our understanding of the molecular, genetic, and environmental factors that either cause or contribute to a wide variety of age-related neurodegenerative disorders. In Pathogenesis of Neurodegenerative Disorders, leading experts detail the cellular and molecular cascades that cause selective degeneration of neuronal populations, and illuminate those factors that are critical to the facilitation or suppression of these neuropathologic processes. Working from studies of human patients, as well as from cell culture and animal models, the authors demonstrate a heretofore unrecognized convergence of the causative pathogenetic mechanisms for many clinically distinct neurological disorders. At center stage are the biochemical and molecular cascades that will ultimately lead to neuronal death-cascades involving oxyradical production, aberrant regulation of cellular ion homeostasis, activation of specific proteases, and activation of a stereotyped sequence of events involving mitochondrial dysfunction. Individual chapters examine how these mechanisms-along with genetic and environmental factors-operate in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, Down's syndrome, amyotropic lateral sclerosis, ischemic stroke, spinal cord injury, and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Pioneering and richly insightful, Pathogenesis of Neurodegenerative Disorders offers a critical and integrative summary of the cutting-edge research findings that illuminate the common genetic, cellular, and molecular bases of many neurological disorders today that promise powerful new preventive and treatment approaches in future.