This volume provides a comprehensive description of phospholipid metabolism in brain, activities of phospholipases A₂, and their involvement in neurological disorders. The purpose of this book is to present readers with cutting edge information in a lively manner that is useful not only to student and teachers but also to researchers and physicians.

Information on bioactive ether lipids and their involvement in neurological disorders is currently scattered throughout the literature in the form of original papers and reviews. Metabolism and Functions of Bioactive Ether Lipids in the Brain provides readers with a comprehensive description of metabolism of bioactive ether lipids in the brain, activities of enzymes involved in their metabolism, and their involvement in neurological disorders.

This book will be particularly useful to neuroscience graduate students, academics, and researchers. Clinicians...

About 40% of central nervous system synapses use glutamate as the neurotransmitter. Over-stimulation of glutamate receptors produces neuronal injury or death by excitotoxicity, which is closely associated with neurochemical and neuropathological changes involved in acute neural trauma (stroke, spinal cord trauma, and head injury) and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer disease, Parkinson disease, Huntington disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Guam-type amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/Parkinson dementia (ALS/PDC), and multiple sclerosis.

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Once Nietzsche said that human beings may be divided into two categories: Apollonians and Dionysians*. By this the philosopher meant that there are human beings a) who know what they are going to do in the long-term future (what we now call the grant application for the next 5 years), i. e., Apollonians, and b) who barely know what they are going to do tomorrow morning before breakfast, i. e., Dionysians. ** To organize a symposium, this symposium in particular, a committee had to be formed either of individuals sharing both Nietzschean characteristics or of individuals possessing either...

Lipids m the nervous system are major components of the m- branes. The presence of glycolipids in high concentrations is unique for the nervous system. Recent discoverres of the functronal and pathological importance of lipids such as diacylglycerols, polyphosphoinositides, prostaglandins, leukotrienes, docosahexaenoic acid, platelet activating factor, and gangliosides have markedly increased the number of publications on nervous system lipids. Many new methods have been developed. Thus, there IS a need for this volume that is dedicated to that methodo- gy. This volume places all of the...