As human longevity continues to be extended, so will the impact of age-associated dementia on individual lives and society. Alzheimer s disease as the most common cause of dementia in the elderly remains a sentinal problem and its underlying pathology is still poorly understood. Available therapeutic strategies require considerable refinement and the development of new therapeutic strategies need input from basic research. Thus continued efforts are necessary both to understand basic mechanisms of the condition and to achieve more powerfull therapies. This volume brings together the reports...

Ageing and dementia are closely related conditions. Increasing age of the general population causes increasing incidence of dementing disorders in later life, although cognitive impairment is not necessarily a consequence of advancing age. The book presents the papers of the International Symposium on Ageing and Dementia, October 17 19, 1997 in Graz, where internationally renowned experts in the field of ageing and dementia gave an overview of the current knowledge about the epidemiology, pathomorphology, clinical diagnosis and course of brain ageing processes and related dementing disorders,...

th From November 20 to 23, 1997 the 6 International Winter Conference on Neurodegeneration was held in Kitzbtihel, Austria, to explore recent ad vances in the treatment of neurodegenerative and neuroimmunological CNS diseases. Following the tradition of the previous conferences a select group of distinguished basic researchers and clinicians spent two days in the quiet Austrian mountain resort with in depth review and discussion of current topics in the fields of neurodegeneration and neuroimmunology focussing on the interface between these two groups of disorders. The main focus was on how...

The 8th International Winter Conference on Neurodegeneration from Febru ary 9 to 13, 2000 took place in Tegernsee, Bavaria, Germany. The interest shown in this symposium, which was carried by invited speakers only, was striking. 28 lectures in 5 sessions dealt with themes on basic science and therapy strategies for neurodegenerative illness. This time especially basic mechanism of cell death and resulting causal treatment possibilities were centre themes of the lectures and lively discussions. In accordance with tradi tion 5 lectures on Multiple Sclerosis finished the convention. 60...

Generalized non convulsive epilepsy (GNCE), also called absence or petit mal epilepsy, is a disease appearing during childhood. EEG, clinical, pharmacological and genetic characteristics differ from those of convulsive or focal epilepsies. No underlying structural or biochemical abnormality has been identified for generalized absence seizures and the etiology of this disorder is unknown. It is unlikely that the precise pathophysiology of GNCE can be resolved in studies that focus on humans. Therefore a number of animal models reproducing the human disease have been developed. The aim of this...

"Advances in Down Syndrome Research represents updated research in several areas of Down Syndrome (DS). A new promising animal model of DS is reported and this opens new opportunities to study pathomechanisms and pharmacological approaches as it is more than difficult to carry out studies in humans and the clinical features are highly variable. In terms of biology, cell cycle and stem cell studies and in terms of biochemistry, relevance of studies on a specific protein kinase, channels, transporters, superoxide dismutase, antioxidant system, chromosome assembly factor and other important...

As a former president of the International Society for Neuro- vegetative Research and as a co-editor it is a pleasure to write a short introduction to the present volume which contains the proceedings of an international symposium, held at Tihany, Hungary, June 19-24, 1972, under the auspices of the Society mentioned above. The meeting, which was organized by Professor B. Csillik, Szeged, Hungary, who also acted as president, took place at the Tihany Biological Institute, most beautifully situated at lake Balaton. Such international symposia of the International Society for Neurovegetative...

During the last annual meeting of the Austrian Society for Electron Microscopy it was decided to organize scientific symposia dealing with basic problems of cytology. If possible such symposia should be arranged in cooperation with other scientific societies. We intended to arrange symposia on special fields, to be presented on several aspects by excellent scientists invited. "Neural Transmission" was chosen as a central topic for this first symposium. The subject represents a most rapidly expanding field of research and is of particular interest to morphologists, physiologists,...

The scientific work of Walther Birkmayer is grounded on his ability to turn what was often a mass of clinical details into the basis for a hypothesis for a new therapeutic approach toward solving the problems of a patient's illness. Birkmayer first became known when, during the Second World War, he built up a clinic for brain injuries in Vienna, in which over 3000 patients were treated. The study of changes in the autonomic functions of the nervous system in these patients as well as the problems of rehabilitation were published in a monograph, "Hirn- verletzungen". Consequently, this was his...