Pathological Potential of Neuroglia: Possible New Targets for Medical Intervention

Pathophysiological states, neurological and psychiatric diseases are almost universally considered from the neurocentric point of view, with neurons being the principal cellular element of pathological process. The brain homeostasis, which lies at the fulcrum of healthy brain function, the compromise of which invariably results in dysfunction/disease, however, is entirely controlled by neuroglia. It is becoming clear that neuroglial cells are involved in various aspects of initiation, progression and resolution of neuropathology. In this book we aim to integrate the body of information that has accumulated in recent years revealing the active role of glia in such pathophysiological processes. Understanding roles of glial cells in pathology will provide new targets for medical intervention and aide the development of much needed therapeutics. This book will be particularly useful for researchers, students, physicians and psychotherapists working in the field of neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry.

Professor Alexei Verkhratsky, MD, PhD, D.Sc., Member of Academia Europaea, Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Member of Real Academia Nacional de Farmacia (Spain), was born in 1961 in Stanislaw, Galicia, Western Ukraine. He graduated from Kiev Medical Institute in 1983, and received PhD (1986) and D.Sc. (1993) in Physiology from Bogomoletz Institute of Physiology, Kiev, Ukraine. He joined the Division of Neuroscience, School of Biological Sciences in Manchester in September 1999, became a Professor of Neurophysiology in 2002 and served as Head of the said Division from 2002 to 2004. From 2007 to 2010 he was appointed as a visitor professor/Head of Department of Cellular and Molecular Neurophysiology at the Institute of Experimental Medicine, Academy of Sciences of Check Republic. In 2010 A. Verkhratsky was appointed as a Research Professor of Ikerbasque (the Basque Research Council), in 2011 as an Honorary Visiting Professor at Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan and from 2012 he acts as Adjunct Scientific Director of the Achucarro Basque Centre for Neuroscience (Bilbao, Spain). Prof. A. Verkhratsky is a co-editor-in-chief of Cell Calcium (2000), and Membrane Transport & Signalling - Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews (2009), Receiving Editor of Cell Death & Disease (2009) and a member of editorial boards of numerous scientific journals.

Vladimir Parpura, M.D., Ph.D., holds both a medical degree, awarded from the University of Zagreb in Croatia in 1989, and a doctorate, received in Neuroscience and Zoology from Iowa State University in 1993. He has held faculty appointments at the Department of Zoology and Genetics, Iowa State University and the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, University of California Riverside. He is presently a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Neurobiology, University of Alabama Birmingham, as well as a tenured Full Professor in the Department of Biotechnology, University of Rijeka, Croatia. He has been elected as a Member of Academia Europaea (MEA) in 2012. His current research includes: i) studying the modulation of calcium-dependent glutamate release from astrocytes in health and disease; ii) visualization of vesicular/receptor trafficking; iii) examination of the nature and energetics of interactions between exocytotic proteins using single molecule detection approaches; iv) development of scaffolds and dispersible materials, most notably modified carbon nanotubes, which can be used in repair after brain injury and v) bio-mimetic micro-robotics. He has been interfacing neuroscience with nanoscience/nanotechnology, synthetic biology and biomedical engineering.