It is a great honor and pleasure for me to introduce this book; an honor, because of the scientific renown and authority of the investigators who have edited the volume and contributed the chapters; a pleasure, because my own long-lasting interest in the baroreflexes has always gone in the same directions as those along which the authors of this book have conceived and organized their work. It is particularly meaningful, in my opinion, that the very title of this volume underlines the inte...

One of the most widespread words in medicine is placebo and placebo effect, although it is not always clear what it means exactly. Recent progress in biomedical research has allowed a better clarification of the placebo effect. We know that this is an active psychobiological phenomenon which takes place in the patient's brain and that is capable of influencing both the course of a disease and the response to a therapy. Since publication of the first edition of this book in 2008, there has ...

Ischemic brain damage represents a major source of morbidity and mortality in westernized society and poses a significant financial burden on the health care system. To date, few effective therapies have been realized. Recent evidence, however, suggests that channels, pumps, and ionic exchangers are involved in CNS ischemia and ischemic stroke, but the potential contribution of these channels for curing stroke is far less understood than for many other normal and pathological conditions. N...

The volume ‘Appetite Control’ provides a comprehensive description of the mechanisms controlling food intake, and thereby energy balance, in the mammalian organism. During the last decade, research in this area has produced a remarkable wealth of information and has characterized the function of numerous peptides, transmitters, and receptors in appetite control. Dysfunction of these circuits leads to obesity, a growing health concern. However, the plethora of mechanistic information is in ...

This book reviews current science and applications in fields including thrombosis and hemostasis, signal transduction, and non-thrombotic conditions such as inflammation, allergy and tumor metastasis. It is a detailed, up-to-date, highly referenced text for clinical scientists and physicians, including recent developments in this rapidly expanding field. More than a scientific resource, this is also an authoritative reference and guide to the diagnosis.

This book puts hydrogen sulfide in context with other gaseous mediators such as nitric oxide and carbon monoxide, reviews the available mechanisms for its biosynthesis and describes its physiological and pathophysiological roles in a wide variety of disease states. Hydrogen sulfide has recently been discovered to be a naturally occurring gaseous mediator in the body. Over a relatively short period of time this evanescent gas has been revealed to play key roles in a range of physiological p...

This volume aims to connect current ideas and concepts about GI disorders with the search for novel therapeutics. Towards this goal, authors provide a timely state-of-the-art overview of the GI tract in health and disease, current treatment approaches and ongoing developments in drug discovery, and their potential for the better treatment of patients with GI disorders.

The Human Genome Project was sold to the general public largely on the basis that a complete picture of the structure of human DNA would lead to new and better medicines. These medicines would be better because they would be tailored to individual patients, maximising the chances of a therapeutic response and mi nimising the risks of an adverse event. Taking the idea further, pundits have pre dicted that the time will come when we could carry our DNA on a card which could be read rapidly a...

Induced pluripotent stem cells in cardiovascular research.- TRPs in the brain.- The channel physiology of the skin.

This special book is conceived to highlight mitochondrial structural and functional integrity and how they are associated with several human diseases such as cardiovascular, cancer, renal, neurological disorder, and genetic disorders. The chapters contributed by leading mitochondrial researchers in the handbook will take us through the novel pharmacological strategies via mitochondria to understand their physiological and pathological role as well as present them as therapeutic targets.

Mark P. Mattson, Ph.D. is Chief of the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, where he leads a multi-faceted research team that applies cutting-edge technologies in research aimed at understanding molecular and cellular mechanisms of brain aging and the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders. He is also a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He has published more than 450 original research art...

This book provides the reader with a contemporary and comprehensive overview about the molecular, cellular and system-wide principles of circadian clock regulation. Emphasis is placed on the importance of circadian clocks for the timing of therapeutic interventions.