The study of neurotransmitters in the human brain has expanded spectacularly in recent years with the application of techniques from immunology and molecular biology. These techniques are now being used successfully to help decipher the chemical architecture of the human nervous system. The results of these studies are of great importance for the understanding and treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases, as well as depression and schizophrenia. Professor Istvan Tork was a pioneer in the chemical anatomy of the brain and...

The last Kindling Conference was organized by Dr. Juhn Wada and held at the Univer- sity of British Columbia, Vancouver, B. C., in 1989. In the intervening years, research on kin- dling has proceeded at an explosive pace and significant advances have been made in our understanding of the molecular biological, anatomical, and physiological substrates of kin- dling, as well as in our appreciation of the age-dependent effects and complex behavioral consequences of kindling, its sensitivity to drugs, and its relevance to the clinical epilepsies. In order to review these developments and to...

Aging is one of the most universal and inevitable social and sci entific challenges confronting man. The lives of all multicellular organisms begin with conception, extend through phases of development, maturity, senescence and finally end in death. Man is no exception, but has the unique feature of a complex brain. It plays an integra tive role in adaptation to the physical and social environments through reflexes, conditioning and more complex forms of learning. The brain is a repository for both inherited and acquired information. With the development of speech and the formation of...

The thalidomide tragedy which occurred slightly more than a decade ago made public officials and the general public acutely aware of the teratogenic potential of drugs. Although specialists in pharmacology and developmental biology had been studying this problem many years before, this catastrophic episode triggered the passage of legislation which required that information about the teratogenicity of drugs be produced before the drugs could be available to the general public. Gross deformities in man produced by drugs are frequently difficult to reproduce in experimental animals and the...

It is indeed a pleasure to welcome all of you to this Inter national Symposium on the Neurohumoral coding of Brain Function. Many of you have undertaken a very long trip in order to cross swords with some of the most fascinating issues in all of the neurosciences. Of particular satisfaction in this instance is the geographical representation of the sciences with individuals here from Europe and the Americas - South, Central and North. As we do battle, so to speak, with each of the questions raised during the next several days, we should remember that the problems faced by each of our fields...

Sexual compatibility between male and female partners is in- dispensable to normal and successful fertilization in mammals. Thus, the genes from males and females whose sexual behavior is characterized by awkwardness, ineptness, and miscues are elimi- nated from the gene pool of the species. In human societies, this compatibility is not always evident; and the behavior that precedes and accompanies copulation and fertilization is exceed- ingly complex and affected by many variables. As in most other species of animals, the entire repertoire of reproductive behavior of man is not well...

At the 1975 Winter Conference on Brain Research a series of workshops were held to discuss the role of the sensory environment in the etiology and therapy of brain dysfunction. The participants represented a broad range of disciplines ranging from basic neuro- science through human development psychology. They were linked by a common belief that the role of the sensory environment in brain dysfunction had received insufficient attention. Each had made contributions to this question in their own respective disciplines and it was hoped that this meeting would provide an opportunity for cross...

The "septum pellucidum" has been described since antiquity. Even though people such as Vicq d' Azyr (12) and Burdach (3) pictured the septal region in their drawings, the nuclei associa- ted with the pellucidum--the septal nuclei--were not described until Meynert (10). Since Meynert's description, this portion of the limbic system has been troublesome in terms of nomenclature. Scientists about the turn of the twentieth century proposed quite diverse termin- ologies. For example, Elliot Smith first wrote of the precommis- sural area (4) and then later of the paraterminal body (5). These terms,...

There are currently about 21 million people over 6S years in the United States and over a million of them suffer from a severe degree of mental impairment. This number will undoubtedly increase as more and more people attain their full lifespan. The Veterans Administration is acutely aware of this problem in the population it serves. Currently, there are about 31 million veterans in the United States. About 13 percent of these veterans are over 6S years of age and the number is expected to increase to 40 percent by the turn of the century. In recognition of the pressing need to address this...

This volume was generated from papers presented at the Second Triennial Symposium of the International Basal Ganglia Society (IBAGS) held at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, July 21-23, 1986. The meeting was held as a satellite symposium following the XXX Congress of the International Union of Physiological Sciences at Vancouver. IBAGS was founded at a similar satellite symposium held in Lorne, Australia, organized by John S. McKenzie and sponsored by the University of Melbourne. The symposium held in Australia was attended by 50 scientists from 12 different countries. The...