Main description:

Alzheimer's disease is one of the major scientific, medical and social challenges of our time. This book (the third volume of proceedings of the Colloques Medecine et Recherche of the Fondation Ipsen pour la Recherche Therapeutique) is dedicated to neuronal grafting and Alzheimer's disease. The wealth of basic information presented testifies to the progress that has been achieved in intracerebral grafting and to the utility of intracerebral grafting as a tool for the understanding of brain development, adult neuronal plasticity and age-related pathology. An answer to the question, whether neuronal grafting will be useful as a therapy for Alzheimer's disease, must wait for a better understanding of the disease and the identification of animal models that can be used to test potential therapies. Meanwhile, the tool of intracerebral grafting may, in the future, be used to address the pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease.

Contents:

Neuronal Grafting and Alzheimer's Disease: Introduction.- Nigral and Striatal Grafts to the Lesioned Neostriatum: Models of Graft Function.- Intracerebral Grafts of Dopaminergic Neurons: A Discussion of Their Functional Effects and Mechanisms of Action.- Purkinje Cell Replacement by Intracerebellar Neuronal Implants in an Animal Model of Heredodegenerative Ataxia: An Overview.- Spontaneous Remyelination and Intracerebral Grafting of Myelinating Cells in Mammals.- Synaptic Plasticity vs Pathology in Alzheimer's Disease: Implications for Transplantation.- Host Immune Responses to Neural Transplantation: A Possible Model for Autoimmune Diseases of the Central Nervous System.- NGF in CNS: Sites of Synthesis and Effects of Novel Ways to Administer NGF on Intrinsic Cholinergic Neurons and Grafts of Cholinergic Neurons and Their Target Areas.- Short-Term Memory in Rodent Models of Ageing: Effects of Cortical Cholinergic Grafts.- Pathophysiology of the Subcortically Deafferented Hippocampus: Improvement and Deterioration of Function by Fetal Grafts.- Can Fetal Cell Grafts be Expected to Ameliorate Symptoms of Human Neurodegenerative Disorders? Evidence from Animal Models.- Age-Related Changes in Rat Hippocampal Noradrenergic Transmission: Insights from In Oculo Transplants.- Neural Grafts and Neurotransmitter Interactions in Cognitive Deficits.- Serotonin-Expressing Cells from Different Microregions of the Embryonic Rat Rhombencephalon: Behaviour in Cell Culture and in Transplants to the Adult Spinal Cord.- Two Approaches for the Reversal of Phenobarbital-Induced Behavioral Birth Defects.- Differential Neural Plasticity of Diffuse Monoaminergic and Point-to-Point Sensory Afferents as Demonstrated by Responses to Target Deprivation and Fetal Neural Transplants.- Deleterious and "Overshoot" Effects of Intracerebral Transplants.