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Gliomas: Recent results in cancer research.
Newrosr~mce.
1976.
Vol. I, pp. 353.-354. Pergamon Press.Printed in Great
BOOK TheUse
of Axonal Transport
Bntain
REVIEWS
Connectivity, W. MAXWELL Elsevier, Amsterdam (1975). 364 pp., $40.95
for Studies of Neuronal
THIS is a balanced collection of authorative and well-illustrated articles, including contributions from pioneers and other distinguished workers in the exploration of axonal and intraneuronal transport. It is the outcome of invited papers given at a symposium of the same name at GwattThun, Switzerland, in 1974. The sequence of articles indicates the scope of the work. An editorial chapter defines the range of transport studies so far exploited, and indicates the advantages and limitations of the major current techniques: the autoradiographic method of supplying small labelled precursor molecules, usually amino acids, to the cell bodies of neurones in order to follow anterograde axonal transport; and the use of exogenous protein markers such as horseradish peroxidase applied to nerve endings for studies of retrograde axonal transport. There follow chapters by Lajtha, Grafstein and Kristensson respectively on the uptake and incorporation of amino acids in ‘neurones and on the anterograde and retrograde transport systems in axons; and Kreutzberg and Schubert discuss the cellular dynamics of intraneuronal transport. The next three articles deal with the practical problems and techniques of introducing tracers (Schubert and HollSinder), performing autoradiographic experiments (Droz) and quantitatively analyzing the results (Price and Wann). The anterograde and retrograde tracer methods are then each separately evaluated with the respect to the
Advances
in Neurosurgery:
Meniugiomas,
Multiple
COWAN & MICHEL CUENOD (Eds.)
corresponding, older, degeneration techniques, by Graybiel and Lavail respectively. All the foregoing systems are of general applicability, but there now follow chapters by Hakfelt and Ljungdahl on exogenous tracer studies of ‘transmitter-specific neurone populations’, and by Geffen on the tracing of endogenous transmitter and transmitterspecific enzymes in adrenergic neurones. Emphasis is laid throughout on the evaluation and lucid exposition of the techniques employed and their successful application; this book should be invaluable for all who seek to trace pathways in the nervous system, and should equip new explorers with both caution and confidence. It also offers to the neuroscientist much valuable information on the phenomena of flow and uptake systems in neurones. and on the strengths and limitations of the techniques used to study them. As the editors predict in their forward-looking final chapter, the opportunities now available for anatomical tracing of physiologically intact neurones, and the prospect of increasing knowledge of what is transported and how, should have a major impact on our understanding of the organization of the nervous system. This timely book will help; it is finely produced by Elsevier. with excellent half-tone illustrations. I found a footnote reference which had escaped inclusion in the author indices: but the indices
otherwise
are helpful.
M. R.
MATTHEWS
Sclerosis, Forensic Problems in Neurosurgery, Vol. 2. W. Springer. (1975). 444 pp., DM 82.00. $35.30 (soft covers).
KLUG.
M. BROCK. M. KLINGER & 0. SP~ERRI(Eds.)
Gliomas:
Recent Results in Cancer Research. Vol. 51, J. HEKMATPANAH(Ed.) Springer. Berlin (1975). 164 pp., DM 54.00,
$23.00.
THE FIRSTbook is a collection of papers read at the 25th Congress of the German Society for Neurosurgery. The papers are all short, indeed compressed to the point of being uninformative. However, none of the papers describe any advances and in general are short papers about virtually case reports. The section on multiple sclerosis contains a few papers on multiple sclerosis which merge with eleven papers concerned with meningiomas mimicing multiple sclerosis. None of this is new. There are then three papers on forensic problems in neurosurgery or. in other words, medico-legal problems and then some free communications about a variety of small topics. Clearly this is a book which will be useful to the contributors of the congress and serve as an memoir of that particular congress but is has little value for anybody else. I would not recommend anyone buying it who did not attend the congress.
353
The second book is a volume on Gliomas. Again this is a book reporting on a symposium, this time at the University of Chicago. I found the papers really very difficult to follow and extremely tedious to read. The first papers reviewed various methods of inducing gliomas experimentally in animals either chemically or with viruses. There are then papers on the investigation and treatment of gliomas and these are all fairly straightforward without saying anything that has now been said several times before. Again I conclude that this is a volume useful for those who attended that particular symposium but I do not believe it contributes anything new to our knowledge. It attempts a very broad sweep when it goes from a basic biology through to the clinical methods of diagnosis and treatment. C. B. T.
ADAMS
1976.
Vol. I, pp. 353.-354. Pergamon Press.Printed in Great
BOOK TheUse
of Axonal Transport
Bntain
REVIEWS
Connectivity, W. MAXWELL Elsevier, Amsterdam (1975). 364 pp., $40.95
for Studies of Neuronal
THIS is a balanced collection of authorative and well-illustrated articles, including contributions from pioneers and other distinguished workers in the exploration of axonal and intraneuronal transport. It is the outcome of invited papers given at a symposium of the same name at GwattThun, Switzerland, in 1974. The sequence of articles indicates the scope of the work. An editorial chapter defines the range of transport studies so far exploited, and indicates the advantages and limitations of the major current techniques: the autoradiographic method of supplying small labelled precursor molecules, usually amino acids, to the cell bodies of neurones in order to follow anterograde axonal transport; and the use of exogenous protein markers such as horseradish peroxidase applied to nerve endings for studies of retrograde axonal transport. There follow chapters by Lajtha, Grafstein and Kristensson respectively on the uptake and incorporation of amino acids in ‘neurones and on the anterograde and retrograde transport systems in axons; and Kreutzberg and Schubert discuss the cellular dynamics of intraneuronal transport. The next three articles deal with the practical problems and techniques of introducing tracers (Schubert and HollSinder), performing autoradiographic experiments (Droz) and quantitatively analyzing the results (Price and Wann). The anterograde and retrograde tracer methods are then each separately evaluated with the respect to the
Advances
in Neurosurgery:
Meniugiomas,
Multiple
COWAN & MICHEL CUENOD (Eds.)
corresponding, older, degeneration techniques, by Graybiel and Lavail respectively. All the foregoing systems are of general applicability, but there now follow chapters by Hakfelt and Ljungdahl on exogenous tracer studies of ‘transmitter-specific neurone populations’, and by Geffen on the tracing of endogenous transmitter and transmitterspecific enzymes in adrenergic neurones. Emphasis is laid throughout on the evaluation and lucid exposition of the techniques employed and their successful application; this book should be invaluable for all who seek to trace pathways in the nervous system, and should equip new explorers with both caution and confidence. It also offers to the neuroscientist much valuable information on the phenomena of flow and uptake systems in neurones. and on the strengths and limitations of the techniques used to study them. As the editors predict in their forward-looking final chapter, the opportunities now available for anatomical tracing of physiologically intact neurones, and the prospect of increasing knowledge of what is transported and how, should have a major impact on our understanding of the organization of the nervous system. This timely book will help; it is finely produced by Elsevier. with excellent half-tone illustrations. I found a footnote reference which had escaped inclusion in the author indices: but the indices
otherwise
are helpful.
M. R.
MATTHEWS
Sclerosis, Forensic Problems in Neurosurgery, Vol. 2. W. Springer. (1975). 444 pp., DM 82.00. $35.30 (soft covers).
KLUG.
M. BROCK. M. KLINGER & 0. SP~ERRI(Eds.)
Gliomas:
Recent Results in Cancer Research. Vol. 51, J. HEKMATPANAH(Ed.) Springer. Berlin (1975). 164 pp., DM 54.00,
$23.00.
THE FIRSTbook is a collection of papers read at the 25th Congress of the German Society for Neurosurgery. The papers are all short, indeed compressed to the point of being uninformative. However, none of the papers describe any advances and in general are short papers about virtually case reports. The section on multiple sclerosis contains a few papers on multiple sclerosis which merge with eleven papers concerned with meningiomas mimicing multiple sclerosis. None of this is new. There are then three papers on forensic problems in neurosurgery or. in other words, medico-legal problems and then some free communications about a variety of small topics. Clearly this is a book which will be useful to the contributors of the congress and serve as an memoir of that particular congress but is has little value for anybody else. I would not recommend anyone buying it who did not attend the congress.
353
The second book is a volume on Gliomas. Again this is a book reporting on a symposium, this time at the University of Chicago. I found the papers really very difficult to follow and extremely tedious to read. The first papers reviewed various methods of inducing gliomas experimentally in animals either chemically or with viruses. There are then papers on the investigation and treatment of gliomas and these are all fairly straightforward without saying anything that has now been said several times before. Again I conclude that this is a volume useful for those who attended that particular symposium but I do not believe it contributes anything new to our knowledge. It attempts a very broad sweep when it goes from a basic biology through to the clinical methods of diagnosis and treatment. C. B. T.
ADAMS