神经生物学

Localization of receptors in brain sections using autoradtographlc detection of radioligand binding has been an important technique in the neuroanatomical identification of a large number of neurotransmitter receptors. However, receptor autoradiography provides lit ...

Neural stem cell (NSC) biology has generated a great deal of interest in recent years. It can inform on both intrinsic and extrinsic processes that underlie cell diversity within the central nervous system (CNS), and is a powerful method for improving understanding of cell ancestry and potenti ...

While still in its infancy, developments in the exciting field of cell replacement and gene transfer to the central nervous system (CNS) are providing the basis for potentially new and powerful therapeutic approaches to a wide range of neurological diseases. Neuronal replacement and par ...

Neural transplantation as a therapy for neurodegenerative diseases has received much attention over the past two decades. The possibility that disease progress could be arrested and function restored raised hopes that a new treatment, particularly for Parkinson’s disease (PD), was ...

The recent development of recombinant viral vectors that are capable of transducing postmitotic cells may provide a powerful new tool for studying brain function, as well as ameliorative strategies in models of neurological disease. Some of these vectors have recently demonstrated d ...

Since the advent of modern neurotransplantation research about two decades ago, considerable attention has focused on its potential use in the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders, particularly Parkinson’s disease. However, although clinical application is limited to a ...

The cell suspension grafting procedure, as originally described by (1983), has become the standard protocol for the implantation of fetal neuronal cell suspensions to deep brain nuclei. Its major advantages, compared to the earlier studies of transplanting solid pieces of fetal tissue ...

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) includes anatomical, physicochemical, and biochemical mechanisms that control the exchange of materials between blood and brain and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Thus two distinct systems, the BBB and the blood-CSF barrier systems, control cerebral ho ...

The tracer experiments of Reese and Karnovsky (1) demonstrated that it was the endothelium that formed a permeability barrier because electron-dense tracers such as horseradish peroxidase did not pass from the vessel lumen through the interendothelial cleft. The structure respon ...

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), a once popular research tool, is used less frequently now. However, the isolation of novel proteins in the past decade has led to renewed use of electron microscopy for the subcellular localization of these proteins. This chapter will describe the sta ...

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a unique dynamic regulatory interface situated at the border between the blood stream and the brain extracellular (or interstitial) fluid. As the “gatekeeper” to the brain, it determines the ability of drugs to gain entrance to brain extracellular fluid and re ...

The first report of blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability by Paul Ehrlich (1) involved the use of the exogenous tracer Coerulean-S as described in Chapter 6. Over the years, tracers of different sizes were introduced to study the permeability properties of normal cerebral vessels in physio ...

Many techniques have been developed to study transport across the blood-brain barrier (BBB). One that offers particular advantage is the in situ brain perfusion technique. The primary objective of the in situ brain perfusion technique is to take over the circulation to the brain via direct inf ...

Efflux transport systems act as one of the detoxification systems at the blood-brain barrier (BBB) by eliminating xenobiotics and endogenous wastes from the brain into the blood (1–6). P-glycoprotein is a well-known example (1,2,5,6). It is a primary active transporter for hydrophobic neut ...

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) serves to regulate passage of solutes and water between circulating blood and brain extracellular fluid (1,2). It is composed of endothelial cells that line brain capillaries and exhibit selective transport properties. Cerebral endothelial cells are u ...

Cellular barriers in the central nervous system (CNS) present a formidable challenge in the delivery of drugs to the brain. These barriers include the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier (BCSFB). Of these, given surface area and diffusional distance cons ...

The first successful isolation of cerebral microvessels from rat brain some 30 years ago opened the way to the development of in vitro models of the blood-brain barrier (BBB), which have since contributed considerably to the understanding of the physiology, pharmacology, and pathophysi ...

The ability to isolate and culture endothelial cells derived from brain microvessels has led to a considerable increase in our understanding of the biology of these cells over the last two decades. Most of these in vitro systems are derived from various animal sources and provide a valuable tool f ...

Primary vascular endothelial cell cultures provide powerful systems to investigate the molecular architecture and regulation of the blood-brain and blood-retinal barriers. Most investigators agree that in vitro models of endothelial cells alone do not completely recapitu ...

Several groups have reported the isolation and in vitro pharmacological characterization of brain microvessel endothelial cells (BMECs) of various origins: bovine, porcine, murine, or human (1–3). Brain capillaries are almost completely ensheathed by astrocyte processes, wh ...