Brain plasticity

This book is a collection of 22 papers written by more than 70 authors from leading laboratories in neuroscience, mostly European. The purpose is to cover the rapidly expanding field of brain plasticity manifested during development and aging. According to the editors, the book is intended for basic neurobiologists and researchers and practitioners interested in neurodegenerative diseases. In addition, it may attract researchers working in developmental biology. The format of the papers ranges from narrowly focused research to broad reviews of general issues in neuroplasticity. The book is well illustrated with black-and-white microphotographs, graphs, and schemes, though color photographs would be very useful, for instance, in discussions of data obtained by fluorescent microscopy. The book is divided into four parts. The first part covers genes of lower animals known to be involved in neural development, some aspects of plasticity of neural and astroglial cells, and an intriguing question of the potential role of microglia in brain signaling. The second part consists of loosely connected chapters on neural plasticity and regeneration. The third part includes chapters on neurotoxicity associated with NGF, Ca2+, glutamate, aging, and Alzheimer's disease. The last part discusses the role of external signals in proliferation, plasticity, and aging of neural cells. Steroids, opioids, amyloid peptide, and adhesion molecules are reviewed. There is a subject index but no author index, and there is a short descriptive preface signed by the five editors. This book bears no traces of editing. The titles of some chapters do not reflect their content, the relevance of some chaptersto the general topic is not obvious, and it comes with a loose page to replace a misprinted figure.