The Blood Brain Barrier In Health And Disease Volume One

Located at the interface between blood and the brain, the blood-brain barrier is a dynamic permeability barrier formed by a continuous layer of specialized endothelial cells endowed with important permeability, transport, and regulatory functions that both protect the internal milieu of the brain and allow essential nutrients to be transported into the brain. Over the last 25 years, we have witnessed remarkable expansion of our knowledge of the structure, biology, and function of the cerebral endothelium. In The Blood-Brain Barrier in Health and Disease, Volume 1, international experts discuss basic and new concepts and most recent advances pertaining to the development of the cerebral microvascular system. Subjects include the structure, function, permeability properties, transport mechanisms, and the inherent heterogeneity of the cerebral endothelium; the anatomy and physiological properties of the neurovascular unit; functional aspects of the choroid plexus; and important concepts and advances made over the last two decades that have shaped our understanding of the immunological function of the blood-brain barrier. This book is intended to serve as a valuable source of basic and advanced information for researchers, students, and clinicians interested in this fast-expanding field and stimulate further research well into the future.

Located at the interface between blood and the brain, the blood-brain barrier is a dynamic permeability barrier formed by a continuous layer of specialized endothelial cells endowed with important permeability, transport, and regulatory functions that both protect the internal milieu of the brain and allow essential nutrients to be transported into the brain. Abnormalities of the blood-brain barrier are increasingly recognized as a key component in the pathogenesis of a range of primary diseases of the brain and the secondary involvement of the brain from pathological processes in other organs. In The Blood-Brain Barrier in Health and Disease, Volume 2, international experts present comprehensive reviews and research accounts on blood-brain barrier dysfunction in infectious and inflammatory diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, stroke, trauma, vitamin deficiency, exposure to neurotoxicants, primary and metastatic brain tumors, and neurodegenerative diseases. This book is intended to serve as a guide and reference to basic and advanced information for researchers, students, and clinicians interested in this fast-expanding field and stimulate further research well into the future.

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a complex and dynamic structure that protects the brain from cells within the vasculature, from the immune system and from pathogens. This barrier is present in arterioles, capillaries and venules and is formed at the level of adjacent endothelial cells, which are coupled to astrocytes, microglia, neurons and pericytes. The structure of this endothelial barrier is unique among endothelia of other organ systems and is composed of complexes made up of tight, gap and adherens junctions. In addition, it is the responsibility of the surrounding cellular elements to maintain the integrity of the junctional complexes and restrict the entry of substances from the blood into the brain. Changes in permeability of the BBB during physiologic and pathophysiologic conditions involve alterations in specific transporters at the level of the endothelium, activation of specific cellular second messenger pathways and/or the dissolution of the junctional complexes composing the BBB. This book focuses on various aspects that account for the formation and maintenance of the BBB, and on disease states that compromise this barrier.

Located at the interface between blood and the brain, the blood-brain barrier is a dynamic permeability barrier formed by a continuous layer of specialized endothelial cells endowed with important permeability, transport, and regulatory functions that both protect the internal milieu of the brain and allow essential nutrients to be transported into the brain. Abnormalities of the blood-brain barrier are increasingly recognized as a key component in the pathogenesis of a range of primary diseases of the brain and the secondary involvement of the brain from pathological processes in other organs. In The Blood-Brain Barrier in Health and Disease, Volume 2, international experts present comprehensive reviews and research accounts on blood-brain barrier dysfunction in infectious and inflammatory diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, stroke, trauma, vitamin deficiency, exposure to neurotoxicants, primary and metastatic brain tumors, and neurodegenerative diseases. This book is intended to serve as a guide and reference to basic and advanced information for researchers, students, and clinicians interested in this fast-expanding field and stimulate further research well into the future.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Antioxidants in Health and Disease" that was published in Nutrients

This book is devoted to exploring the complexities of the blood-brain barrier. The book begins by reviewing the historical experiments that led to the concept of a barrier protecting the brain from variations in the blood. Transport kinetics and carrier-mediated processes are described, and the mechanism by which molecules can cross the barrier is discussed. Ways in which the barrier can be disrupted and opened are covered as well. Subsequent chapters in the book describe the transport of glucose and amino acids into the central nervous systems, cover recent findings by which peptides and proteins are able to gain entry or are excluded from the brain, and analyze models that can be used for investigating how the blood-brain barrier can be disordered in neurological disease processes.

Understanding the structure and function of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and recogniz ing its clinical relevance require a concert of scientific disciplines applied from a view point of integrative physiology rather than from only molecular or analytical approaches. It is this broad scope that is emphasized in this book. In my opinion, four original contributions define the field as it exists today. The first, a monograph by Broman,1 entitled The Permeability of the Cerebrospinal Vessels in Normal and Pathological Conditions, was the model for many subsequent clinical and 3 experimental studies on BBB pathology. Second, experiments by Davson, summarized in his book entitled Physiology of the Ocular and Cerebrospinal Fluids, indicated that passive entry of nonelectrolytes into brain from blood is governed largely by their lipid 4 solubility. This research supported the original suggestion by Gesell and Hertzman that cerebral membranes have the semipermeability properties of cell membranes. The modem era of the barrier was introduced with the 1965 paper by Crone,2 entitled "Facilitated transfer of glucose from blood to brain tissue. " This paper identified stereospecific, facilitated transport of glucose as part of a system of regulatory barrier properties at a time when only a barrier to passive diffusion had been contemplated. Finally, the 1967 paper by Reese and Kamovsky, 11 entitled "Fine structural localization of a blood-brain barrier to exogenous peroxidase," sited the barrier at the continuous layer of cerebrovascular endothelial cells, which are connected by tight junctions.