As the global population ages the impact of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease are significant forces in shaping human health and quality of life in the 21st century. Insights into understanding these diseases, and knowing how to treat them are major frontiers of scientific research.
Neurodegenerative Diseases: Unifying Principles is the result of a conceptual revolution over the last decade in our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases as sharing unifying features. There is an increasing appreciation of the common biological and pathological features across seemingly varied neurodegenerative diseases that entail protein misfolding dysfunction and its consequences over time. Providing an overview of this conceptual change is the main theme for the book.
Conventional approach emphasize the differences among neurodegenerative disorders, here Drs. Cummings and Pillai compile the increasingly compelling evidence that these disorders share many features and that insights in one may be rapidly translated into advances in another.
The goal is to accelerate understanding by showing linkages among biological, pathological, can clinical aspects of this class of diseases.
This collection of 19, inter-related chapters, articulates and broadens our view of the unifying features that initiate and drive disease progression across a variety of neurodegenerative diseases over time. This book will serve as an outstanding sourcebook of insights from experts that have played key roles in this story.
Table of Contents List of Contributors 1 Neurodegenerative Diseases: Evolving Unifying Principles Jeffrey Cummings and Jagan Pillai 2 Neurodegenerative Diseases as Protein Misfolding Disorders Tomohiro Nakamura and Stuart A. Lipton 3 Calcium Hypothesis on Neurodegeneration: The Case of AD and HD Daniel A. Ryskamp, Elena Popugaeva, and Ilya Bezprozvanny 4 Neuroinflammation and Neurodegenerative Diseases Taylor R. Jay, Shane M. Bemiller, Lee E. Neilson, Paul J. Cheng, and Bruce T. Lamb 5 Prion Paradigm of Human Neurodegenerative Diseases Caused by Protein Misfolding Jiri Safar 6 Neuropsychiatric Features Across Neurodegenerative Diseases Claudia R. Padilla and Mario F. Mendez 7 Brain Circuits: Pathway for NDD William Seeley 8 Fluid Biomarkers Indicative of Neurodegenerative Diseases Henrik Zetterberg and Jonathan M. Schott 9 Predementia Disorders: Neurodegenerative Diseases Predecessor States as Unifying Clinical Features Jagan Pillai 10 Genetics of Neurodegenerative Diseases: Sporadic and Autosomal Dominant Forms Lynn M. Bekris and James B. Leverenz 11 An Epigenetics Perspective on Diseases of the Central Nervous System Diego Mastroeni 12 Mitochondrial Changes and Bioenergetics in Neurodegenerative Diseases Andrew B. Knot and Ella Bossy-Wetzel 13 Cell Culture and iPS Cells and Neurodegenerative Diseases Roxana Nat and Andreas Eigentler 14 Animal Models of Neurodegenerative Diseases David Baglietto-Vargas, Rahasson R. Ager, Rodrigo Medeiros, and Frank M. LaFerla 15 Metal-Protein Attenuating Compounds in Neurodegenerative Diseases Peng Lei, Scott Ayton, and Ashley I. Bush 16 Disease modifying therapies in neurodegenerative disorders Janelle Drouin-Ouellet and Roger A. Barker 17 Immunotherapy for Neurodegenerative Disorders David Morgan 18 Clinical Trials and Drug Development in Neurodegenerative Diseases: Unifying Principles Jeffrey Cummings and Kate Zhong 19 Conclusions on Neurodegenerative Disorders: Unifying Principles Jagan Pillai and Jeffrey Cummings Index
Dr. Jeffery Cummings is an internationally recognized leader in clinical trials and drug development for neurodegenerative disorders. His work has been featured in major peer-reviewed journals and his books have been influential world-wide. His work has garnered many awards. Dr. Jagan A Pillai is a cognitive neurologist at the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, Cleveland Clinic. He trained as a medical doctor at the University of Kerala and obtained a PhD from Northwestern University. His training in neurology was completed at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and at the University of California San Diego. Dr. Pillai is closely involved in helping people with memory disorders and cognitive behavioral changes from neurodegenerative diseases and in developing diagnostic and treatment strategies against neurodegenerative diseases.
Reviews for Neurodegenerative Diseases: Unifying Principles
Age-related neurodegeneration is among the most important, most interesting and most complex areas of science. The field is exploding with new developments, and, thankfully, therapeutic strategies. Drs. Cummings and Pillai have assembled a wonderful book exploring the common features and challenges that link the study of neurodegenerative diseases, including proteinopathy, neuroinflammation, genetics and epigenetics, biomarkers and cognitive/behavioral syndromes, with the laudable aim of facilitating cross-fertilization of ideas that may accelerate therapeutic advance. -<em>Paul</em> <em>Stephen Aisen, MD, Director, Alzheimer's Therapeutic Research Institute, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, San Diego, CA</em>
