The papers in this volume are the invited lectures at the Second Workshop on Amine Oxidases held at the Biomedical Center, Uppsala University, 2 to 4 August 1986. It was a great pleasure for the organizers to see, in Uppsala, so many old and new friends, all brought together by our common interest in the fascinating field of Amine Oxidases. The Workshop was the successor of a long row of successful predecessors to start with the 1972 meeting in Cagliari, Sardinia, and recently preceded by the first meeting of Workshop design, held in Cambridge 1984. Several of the previous meetings have been...

At this meeting, a number of critical groups confirmed and extended the original findings by J.A. Obeso and his colleagues. These authors found that continuous s.c. infusion of lisuride, a watersoluble dopaminergic 8- -aminoergoline with dopaminergic properties which can be injected or infused, can improve - sometimes quite considerably - motor function in severely disabled fluctuating Parkinsonian patients. The concurrent use of the peripheral dopamine antagonist domperidone attenuates or prevents side effects related to the stimulation of "peripheral" dopamine receptors, including the...

The Amine Oxidase Workshop was the brain child of Brian Callingham and Keith Tipton. The present book is the proceedings of the fourth in the series and in the past we have dedicated our meeting to individuals who have made significant fundamental contributions to the biochemistry, physiology and pharmacology of this interesting group of enzymes. The present meeting is not an exception because we have gathered here in Wtirzburg to honour an individual whose outstanding work on the autonomic pharmacology has span ned more than 30 years and whose contribution has made a vast impact in our...

This volume is dedicated to Professor Ullrich Trendelenburg. It contains the proceedings of a symposium which was held in his honour on the occasion of his retirement and took place March 22-24, 1991 in Wiirzburg. Ullrich Trendelenburg was the head of the Department of Pharmacology at Wiirzburg University from 1968 till the end of March 1991. He is famous internationally for his contributions to the physiology and pharmacology of the autonomic nervous system, and his impact on pharmacology in general throughout the world has been outstanding. The various phases of his life and his career have...

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) has been used for a decade in psychiatric research to study regional brain glucose metabolism, and the results seem to be inconsistent. However, the inconsistency may be explained by differences in methods and clinical protocols. This problem has been recognized by the EEC Concerted Action on PET, which is why a special psychiatric group was convened. Researchers with knowledge in different aspects of PET methodology like mathematical models, cameras, brain atlas, stimulaton studies and psychiatric research organized a meeting to discuss standardization...

Although age has been recognized as a risk factor for late-onset dementia of Alzheimer type, its etiology is unknown as yet. Several age-related metabolic abnormalities may thus become important for the pathogenesis of the late-onset form. Studies at the cellular/molecular level in brain tissue are possible post mortem, but lack information on the beginning of the disorder. In this supplement, different approaches are dealt with how to induce structural and/or metabolic abnormalities in relevant cell cultures, in brain slices and in experimental animals, and how behavioral changes parallel...

Expert clinicians and basic scientists with a special interest in Parkinson's disease review the current state of science and clinical therapeutics of the disease. Therefore these articles represent an authorative review of the current state of knowledge regarding preclinical course and symptomatology, subtypes with their impact on the pathology, genetic alterations, novel mechanisms of neuronal cell death, diagnostic tools and old and novel therapeutic approaches with respect to neuroprotection and neuroregeneration in Parkinson's disease. Particular emphasis has been placed on a novel...

Neurodegeneration is one of the most important subjects of the investigation now and in the coming 21st century. Alzheimer's disease is the leading cause of dementia in the elderly people and Parkinson's disease is one of the major neurologic disorders with the prevalence between 1 and 2/1 000 population in advanced countries. Many others are suffering from intractable neurodegener ative disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Huntington's disease, or spinocerebellar degeneration. No truly effective treatment is available for any of these neurodegenerative disorders except for...

In his original essay on the shaking palsy (1817) James Parkinson remarked that the "senses and intellect were uninjured." Thus, it was only in later years that the complexity ofparkinsonism and in particular Parkinson's disease with dementia was recognised. Cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease is common and is estimated to affect more than forty per cent of patients with disease onset after age 65. Recent studies suggest that pathology of Parkin son's disease now ranks second to Alzheimer's disease as the commonest sub strate of dementia in elderly patients. The condition is...

Monoamine oxidase (MAO) is linked to psychiatric and neurological disorders, because inhibitors of the enzyme are used clinically for treatment of affective disorders and Parkinson s disease. One of the interesting new aspects of MAO is the occurrence in the human population of deletions of genes coding for one or the other enzyme subtype (A or B). This leads to the possibility of a genetic basis for psychiatric disorders based on MAO. Subjects with deletions of type A or B, and combined deletions, have been described. In the first group of 6 papers in this book, the occurrence and...