Main description:

This book presents the latest findings in mechanosensitivity of the nervous system. The nervous system stands out from a number of tissues because besides reacting to the mechanical stress it is transmitting its own response to other organs and tissues, which are located downstream of its signaling pathway. For this reason any type of mechanical stimulation of the nervous system, which is capable of triggering a physiological response, has high scientific and practical significance, since it allows its use beyond a particular experimental model anywhere where it is contributing to a particular pathological condition.

This book is a unique collection of reviews outlining the current knowledge and the future developments in this rapidly growing field. Currently, investigations of the effects of mechanical stress on the nervous system are focused on several issues. The majority of studies investigate the effects of mechanical stimulation on mechanosensitive channels, as its primary target and interactive agent, and aim on description of downstream intracellular signaling pathways together with addressing general issues of biomechanics of the nervous system. Knowledge of biomechanics, and mechanisms, which underlie it on organism, organ, tissue and cellular level, is necessary for understanding of the normal functioning of living organisms and allows to predict changes which arise due to alterations of their environment, and possibly will allow to develop new methods of artificial intervention.

The book brings up the problem closer to the experts in related medical and biological sciences as well as practicing doctors besides just presenting the latest achievements in the field.

Contents:

Foreword by Nektarios Tavernarakis
Foreword by Pontus Persson
Editorial
Contributors
Part I Mechanosensitivity of Nervous Cells
1. Mechanosensitive Channels in Neuronal and Astroglial Cells in the Nervous System
Sergei Kirischuk
2. Ion Channels with Mechanosensitivity in the Nervous System
Gehoon Chung and Seog Bae Oh
3. Mechanosensitive Cation Currents and their Molecular Counterparts in Mammalian
Sensory Neurons
Jizhe Hao, Matthieu Raoux, Nathalie Azorin, Lise Rodat-Despoix, Aurelie Giamarchi, Francois Maingret, Marcel Crest, Bertrand Coste, and Patrick Delmas
4. Neurons and Cell Swelling-Induced Peptide Hormone Secretion
Vladimir Strbak
5. Neuronal Mechanosensitivity in the Gastrointestinal Tract
Scott D. Smid
Part II Mechanosensitivity of the Receptors
6. Mechanosensitivity of the Cochlea
Keiji Tabuchi and Akira Hara
7. Osmoreceptors in cochlear outer hair cells
Narinobu Harada
8. Are Stretch-Activated Channels an Ocular Barometer?
James C. H. Tan and Minas T. Coroneo
9. Neuromodulation of mechanosensory input to the insect CNS.
Beulah Leitch and Robert M. Pitman
Part III Biomechanic of Nervous System
10. Biomechanics of the CNS
Kristian Franze, Andreas Reichenbach, and Josef Kas
11. The neural representation of Kinematics and Dynamics in multiple brain regions: The use of force field reaching paradigms in the Primate and Rat
Joseph T. Francis
12. Mechanical properties of brain tissue: Characterisation and constitutive modelling
Hans A.W. van Dommelen, Matej Hrapko, and Gerrit W.M. Peters
13. Role of falx on brain stress-strain responses
Narayan Yoganandan, Jianrong Li, Jiangyue Zhang, and Frank A. Pintar
14. Exercise and Nervous System
Kazuhiro Imai, Hiroyuki Nakajima
Part IV Mechanosensitivity of Neurovascular System
15. Mechanosensitive Calcium Fluxes in theNeurovascular Unit: TRP Channel Regulation of the Blood-Brain Barrier
Rachel C. Brown and Roger G. O'Neil
Index