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The effects of taurine on excitable tissues
Book as subtyping endogenous depression, which might aid in differential diagnosis and possibly in the prediction of response to treatment. In the last chapter J. J. Warsh et al. discuss the relevance of amine metabolites in plasma and urine as diagnostic and pharmacodynamic indicators in psychiatric disorders. To summarize, this volume is very timely and covers, in detail, current research in the field of neuroendocrine regulation and altered behaviour. This book may be an important reference source for all those interested in the biological basis of altered behaviour. However, this book will be also of interest to biochemists, neuroscientists, physiologists, endocrinologists, psychiatrists and psychopharmacologists. S. HYNIE
The Effects of Taurine on Excitable Tissues, Edited by S. W. SCHAFFER, S. I. BASKIN and J. J. Kocsrs, MTP Press, Lancaster 198 I. This is a multi-author report of the 21st Annual A. N. Richards Symposium of the Physiological Society of Philadelphia, held at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, on April 23-24 1979. Whilst published reports of such meetings provide useful records they are not without their drawbacks and their value is often diminished by an excessive time interval between the meeting and the appearance of the publication. This publication, having taken almost 2f yr to be published has suffered in this way. The chapters, with one or two exceptions, are rather short, do not always have an adequate summary, and often the diagrams have been so reduced in size that a magnifying glass is necessary. Despite these drawbacks the book contains a great deal of useful information although the ardent student of taurine will have already obtained much of the information from elsewhere. The report is divided into four parts:
(I) Metabolism and function of taurine analogues. (2) Actions of taurine in the central nervous system. (3) Actions of taurine in the cardiovascular system. (4) Clinical implications of taurine. This division into four areas proves to be very useful, although the general discussion at the end of each part is too short and disparate to fully justify publication and there is no reason why the chapter by Kuriyama, Ohkuma and Muramatsu on taurine and cellular integrity should be regarded as a clinical paper. Overall, the consensus of opinion on the function of taurine is developed fairly clearly. Despite its unpopularity in some quarters, the idea is becoming clearer that whatever the function(s) of taurine, it is not as an orthodox or even unorthodox neurotransmitter. The first part of the book provides some interesting data on the existence and properties of taurine-related substances. Not the least interesting of these papers is one by Laszlo Feuer on the biological effects of a new parathyroid hormone, glutamyl taurine. This section also contains an excellent chapter by Kenji Yamaguchi on the purification and characterisation of cysteine dioxygenase, the enzyme that forms cysteine sulphinic acid, a major precursor on the chief, if not the only synthetic pathway of taurine. The second part of this book is the hard core issue of “what is the function of taurine in the CNS?” Many of the chapters in this section demonstrate the neurotransmitter properties of the taurine system. H. 1. Yamamura and co-workers demonstrate a high affinity uptake mechanism for taurine and assume that this is neuronal as kainic acid lesions largely abolished it. An excellent paper by Wheler et ul. shows both an uptake mechanism and a calciumdependent electrically stimulated release of taurine from central nervous tissue. Further reports by Oja et al. and
Reviews
1129
Kumpulainen are in the same vein in showing neurotransmitter properties of the system. To their credit these workers do not express the case for a neurotransmitter role too strongly and their wisdom is well-placed when it is shown quite clearly in other chapters that many of these properties can be demonstrated in human blood platelets (NaussKarol and Vander Wende) and pinealocytes (Wheler and Klein). Within this section of the book there are three papers (Voaden et al., Pasantes-Morales et al. and Schmidt) which provide overwhelming evidence that taurine has a specific role to play in retinal function. Whilst the data are not in total agreement (e.g. does light induce release of taurine?), there is general agreement that the functional role of taurine is in the photo receptors and the data showing decreased electroretinogram amplitudes and photoreceptor cell death in animals fed on a taurine-free diet seem to confirm this. In this section, there is also an interesting chapter by John Sturman on the axonal transport of taurine. One of the novel findings here is that axonal transport of taurine increases during synaptogenesis. If taurine is to find a role in synaptogenesis, then an increase in the concentration of taurine of brain might be expected during development in parallel with some other substances like GABA. This is contrary to well-established findings that taurine decreases steadily during the development of the brain. Even though the consensus of opinion is that taurine is not an orthodox neurotransmitter, the data indicating a close association between taurine and synaptic vesicles is irrefutable. This entails the allocation of a function to taurine in the vesicle; whilst this section of the book suggests various functions at this site, these are tentative ideas with very little experimental evidence to accompany them. The third section of this book presents various chapters on the role of taurine in the heart. Three of these papers describe factors that control the size of the myocardial taurine pool, one of them by Bahl et al., using isolated heart myocytes, an interesting model for this kind of study. The remainder of this section is a brave attempt by many workers to establish a functional role for taut-me in heart tissue. The data presented suggest that taurine acts as a membrane stabiliser possibly through calcium-mediated mechanisms but that it may also have direct synaptic and postsynaptic effects. This section of the book adequately illustrates that, however limited our knowledge of the central functions of taurine, the situation is considerably worse when we consider our knowledge of the function(s) of taurine in peripheral organs. The final section of this book “Clinical Implications of Tuurine” revolves mainly around studies made with animal models. Kuriyama et al. show that taurine can protect animals against streptozotacin-induced diabetes. Yamori et ~11. show that taurine reduces mortality in stroke-prone hypertensive rats whilst Lombardini and Crass show that myocardial taurine concentration decreases in three different kinds of cardiac ischemia. The only true clinical paper is provided by Durelli and Mutani who report results on myotonic patients. Their results indicate that taurine enhances ionic movements across the cell membrane and furthermore, that taurine may prove a useful drug in the clinical treatment of myotonic disorders. Then we come to the function of taurine. Having been presented with a great variety of data and several different postulates as to the function(s) of taurine, one cannot resist the temptation to dwell on the findings of Fuzzessery et al. quoted by Rassan and Gaul1 in their chapter on nutrition, that the spiny lobster, Pam&us argus has specific taurine receptors on its antenules. As this animal apparently uses these taurine receptors for finding food, the taurine present in the mammalian body may be a mere residue of the time when present day mammals were titbits for larger animals! All in the all this is a most informative book, of considerable value to all those interested in taurine. However, for
1130
Book
Reviews
those interested in taurine to the tune of L35.50, two and a half years is a long time to wait for the information, much of which was sufficiently important to be released elsewhere before and after the meeting. W. E. DAVIES
Pharmacology of Hearing, Edited by R. D. BROWN and E. A. DAIGNEAULT,Wiley Interscience, Chichester. Many multi-author books lose their impact on nonspecialist readers by virtue of the fact that all the authors unjustifiably assume an expert knowledge of the subject by the reader. This book has avoided this pitfall by providing three basic chapters at the beginning covering the anatomy, physiology and biochemistry of the auditory system. This objective has been achieved completely only by the chapter on anatomy by Don Brown, who has produced an excellent review of the anatomy of the cochlea and its central connections without overburdening the text with a detailed account of recent research that might be more relevant to later chapters. The other two introductory chapters, whilst giving a sound but short introductory account of the two areas, move on too rapidly to discuss recent research not entirely relevant to the pharmacology of hearing. The comparative nature of these three chapters is exemplified by the number of references in each, 38 in the anatomy chapter and 155 and 127 respectively in the other two. Chapter four by A. M. Feldman on the cochlear fluids covers very lucidly our knowledge and ignorance of the composition and source of the cochlear fluids as well as evaluating the analytical problems involved and the relevance of such analysis in some clinical situations. There follows a chapter by R. S. Guth. W. F. Sewell and M. Tachibana on the pharmacology of the cochlear afferents and cochlear nucleus. Whilst this is a first class chapter, incorporating historical and recent research in the area, it suffers from a total lack of diagrams, and one or two inaccuracies such as “GABA transaminase is considered an important means of terminating GABA’s action”. It also contains a list of criteria for the identification of a chemical neurotransmitter, a concept that would appear to be too simple for a book of this stature but interestingly enough, a similar list appears in the following chapter on the pharmacology of cochlear eKerents. There follows three chapters which are the heart of the title namely the ototoxcity of the aminoglycoside antibiotics, the loop diuretics and other ototoxic agents. These three chapters are comprehensive and well documented although the editor has deemed it necessary to add a footnote in one place concerning some earlier work in this area. There is a small section in the chapter on miscellaneous ototoxic agents by D. L. Kisiel and R. P. Bobbin that is devoted to the ototoxic effect of anti-cancer drugs. This area of ototoxcity could very well have been developed further. The preliminary results on cis-diamine dichloroplantinum in clinical ototoxcity are equivocal and it is certainly not justified at this point to say, as the authors do, that such ototoxcity is reversible after the termination of drug therapy. The next two chapters deal with the pharmacology of audiogenic seizures and vestibular pharmacology. They are both useful and well referenced chapters of considerable interest. The final chapter on the clinical applications of auditory electrophysiology by C. 1. Berlin and J. N. Gardi, seems to be an anomaly in a book devoted mainly to pharmacology. Nevertheless it is very well written and rightly underlines the usefulness of the recording of four different types of stimulus responses in difficult diagnostic situations. The use of particular patients to demonstrate its value is well appreciated.
Generally speaking the book should prove to be of immense value to students, researchers and clinicians and should also be good value for those who wish to learn a little more about the auditory system, its vulnerability to drugs and the innumerable research problems that it presents. The publication has been rapid so that its research data is still up to date and, although it is expensive at about f40, it is good value for money. W. E. DAVIES
Fundamentals to a Pharmacology of the Mind, Edited by C. E. GIURGEA,American lecture series, publication No. 1041, Charles C. Thomas, Springfield 1981. This book appears as A Monograph in “The Bannersfone Division of’ American Lectures in Objective Psychiatry” edited by the late W. Horsley Gantt. It was he who stimulated Cornelius E. Giurgea to write this book which encompasses the past, present and future of psychopharmacology. C. E. Giurgea studied medicine in the University of Bucharest, Rumania, worked with P. S. Kupalov in the Institute of Experimental Medicine in Leningrad, U.S.S.R., and at present is an Associate professor at the University of Louvain (UCL), Belgium and Chairman of the UCB-Department of Neuropharmacology, Brussels, Belgium. This book is neither text-book nor essay but something that touches both of them. The author concentrates on the pharmacological control of the mind from the medical and psychiatric perspectives of prevention and treatment. He looks into the past to untangle some of the present puzzles or at least to try to understand from whence they came. Moreover, the author evaluates the impact of Pavlovian and post-Pavlovian schools on Western physiological and pharmacological ways of thinking and working in the area of research into the central nervous system. Finally. the author provides us with an extensive account of the nootropic approach in psychopharmacology. It is the author himself who proposed the term nootropic drugs for a new class of psychotropic drugs whose effects are aimed directly at the mind (piracetam and other drugs with a similar mode of action). This book is divided into ten chapters. The first two of them give a brief synthesis of the history and present status of knowledge on the functional organization of the brain, i.e. an anatomo-physiological view with the emphasis on functional interhemispheric relationships. The following two chapters discuss the functional disorganization of the brain. The premises of and neurogenic procedures used in experimental neuroses (in the terminology of I. P. Pavlov) are explored. Symptomatology. temporal and spatial dynamics of experimental neurosis and some therapeutic considerations are discussed as well. Chapters five to six deal with some general psychopharmacological problems. The author discusses how changes in the functional state of the telencephalic, higher integrative stuctures can modulate drug efficiency. Described among others, are: the placebo effect, druggphysician interaction, drug-motivational interaction, and tonic unconditioned and conditioned psychopharmacological modulations. Chapter six describes how drugs can affect the mind indirectly by their various subcortical impacts. In chapter seven, the most extensive one, the author dis-usses the pharmacology of piracetam, a representative of nootropics, i.e. drugs that affect the mind directly (drugs with selective telencephalic impact). This chapter discusses a variety of experimental data and corresponding pharmaco-clinical correlations. In the following chapter, attention turns to the ontogenetic and environmental modulation in psychopharmacology. Special emphasis is given to pediatric and geriatric psychopharmacology.
The Effects of Taurine on Excitable Tissues, Edited by S. W. SCHAFFER, S. I. BASKIN and J. J. Kocsrs, MTP Press, Lancaster 198 I. This is a multi-author report of the 21st Annual A. N. Richards Symposium of the Physiological Society of Philadelphia, held at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, on April 23-24 1979. Whilst published reports of such meetings provide useful records they are not without their drawbacks and their value is often diminished by an excessive time interval between the meeting and the appearance of the publication. This publication, having taken almost 2f yr to be published has suffered in this way. The chapters, with one or two exceptions, are rather short, do not always have an adequate summary, and often the diagrams have been so reduced in size that a magnifying glass is necessary. Despite these drawbacks the book contains a great deal of useful information although the ardent student of taurine will have already obtained much of the information from elsewhere. The report is divided into four parts:
(I) Metabolism and function of taurine analogues. (2) Actions of taurine in the central nervous system. (3) Actions of taurine in the cardiovascular system. (4) Clinical implications of taurine. This division into four areas proves to be very useful, although the general discussion at the end of each part is too short and disparate to fully justify publication and there is no reason why the chapter by Kuriyama, Ohkuma and Muramatsu on taurine and cellular integrity should be regarded as a clinical paper. Overall, the consensus of opinion on the function of taurine is developed fairly clearly. Despite its unpopularity in some quarters, the idea is becoming clearer that whatever the function(s) of taurine, it is not as an orthodox or even unorthodox neurotransmitter. The first part of the book provides some interesting data on the existence and properties of taurine-related substances. Not the least interesting of these papers is one by Laszlo Feuer on the biological effects of a new parathyroid hormone, glutamyl taurine. This section also contains an excellent chapter by Kenji Yamaguchi on the purification and characterisation of cysteine dioxygenase, the enzyme that forms cysteine sulphinic acid, a major precursor on the chief, if not the only synthetic pathway of taurine. The second part of this book is the hard core issue of “what is the function of taurine in the CNS?” Many of the chapters in this section demonstrate the neurotransmitter properties of the taurine system. H. 1. Yamamura and co-workers demonstrate a high affinity uptake mechanism for taurine and assume that this is neuronal as kainic acid lesions largely abolished it. An excellent paper by Wheler et ul. shows both an uptake mechanism and a calciumdependent electrically stimulated release of taurine from central nervous tissue. Further reports by Oja et al. and
Reviews
1129
Kumpulainen are in the same vein in showing neurotransmitter properties of the system. To their credit these workers do not express the case for a neurotransmitter role too strongly and their wisdom is well-placed when it is shown quite clearly in other chapters that many of these properties can be demonstrated in human blood platelets (NaussKarol and Vander Wende) and pinealocytes (Wheler and Klein). Within this section of the book there are three papers (Voaden et al., Pasantes-Morales et al. and Schmidt) which provide overwhelming evidence that taurine has a specific role to play in retinal function. Whilst the data are not in total agreement (e.g. does light induce release of taurine?), there is general agreement that the functional role of taurine is in the photo receptors and the data showing decreased electroretinogram amplitudes and photoreceptor cell death in animals fed on a taurine-free diet seem to confirm this. In this section, there is also an interesting chapter by John Sturman on the axonal transport of taurine. One of the novel findings here is that axonal transport of taurine increases during synaptogenesis. If taurine is to find a role in synaptogenesis, then an increase in the concentration of taurine of brain might be expected during development in parallel with some other substances like GABA. This is contrary to well-established findings that taurine decreases steadily during the development of the brain. Even though the consensus of opinion is that taurine is not an orthodox neurotransmitter, the data indicating a close association between taurine and synaptic vesicles is irrefutable. This entails the allocation of a function to taurine in the vesicle; whilst this section of the book suggests various functions at this site, these are tentative ideas with very little experimental evidence to accompany them. The third section of this book presents various chapters on the role of taurine in the heart. Three of these papers describe factors that control the size of the myocardial taurine pool, one of them by Bahl et al., using isolated heart myocytes, an interesting model for this kind of study. The remainder of this section is a brave attempt by many workers to establish a functional role for taut-me in heart tissue. The data presented suggest that taurine acts as a membrane stabiliser possibly through calcium-mediated mechanisms but that it may also have direct synaptic and postsynaptic effects. This section of the book adequately illustrates that, however limited our knowledge of the central functions of taurine, the situation is considerably worse when we consider our knowledge of the function(s) of taurine in peripheral organs. The final section of this book “Clinical Implications of Tuurine” revolves mainly around studies made with animal models. Kuriyama et al. show that taurine can protect animals against streptozotacin-induced diabetes. Yamori et ~11. show that taurine reduces mortality in stroke-prone hypertensive rats whilst Lombardini and Crass show that myocardial taurine concentration decreases in three different kinds of cardiac ischemia. The only true clinical paper is provided by Durelli and Mutani who report results on myotonic patients. Their results indicate that taurine enhances ionic movements across the cell membrane and furthermore, that taurine may prove a useful drug in the clinical treatment of myotonic disorders. Then we come to the function of taurine. Having been presented with a great variety of data and several different postulates as to the function(s) of taurine, one cannot resist the temptation to dwell on the findings of Fuzzessery et al. quoted by Rassan and Gaul1 in their chapter on nutrition, that the spiny lobster, Pam&us argus has specific taurine receptors on its antenules. As this animal apparently uses these taurine receptors for finding food, the taurine present in the mammalian body may be a mere residue of the time when present day mammals were titbits for larger animals! All in the all this is a most informative book, of considerable value to all those interested in taurine. However, for
1130
Book
Reviews
those interested in taurine to the tune of L35.50, two and a half years is a long time to wait for the information, much of which was sufficiently important to be released elsewhere before and after the meeting. W. E. DAVIES
Pharmacology of Hearing, Edited by R. D. BROWN and E. A. DAIGNEAULT,Wiley Interscience, Chichester. Many multi-author books lose their impact on nonspecialist readers by virtue of the fact that all the authors unjustifiably assume an expert knowledge of the subject by the reader. This book has avoided this pitfall by providing three basic chapters at the beginning covering the anatomy, physiology and biochemistry of the auditory system. This objective has been achieved completely only by the chapter on anatomy by Don Brown, who has produced an excellent review of the anatomy of the cochlea and its central connections without overburdening the text with a detailed account of recent research that might be more relevant to later chapters. The other two introductory chapters, whilst giving a sound but short introductory account of the two areas, move on too rapidly to discuss recent research not entirely relevant to the pharmacology of hearing. The comparative nature of these three chapters is exemplified by the number of references in each, 38 in the anatomy chapter and 155 and 127 respectively in the other two. Chapter four by A. M. Feldman on the cochlear fluids covers very lucidly our knowledge and ignorance of the composition and source of the cochlear fluids as well as evaluating the analytical problems involved and the relevance of such analysis in some clinical situations. There follows a chapter by R. S. Guth. W. F. Sewell and M. Tachibana on the pharmacology of the cochlear afferents and cochlear nucleus. Whilst this is a first class chapter, incorporating historical and recent research in the area, it suffers from a total lack of diagrams, and one or two inaccuracies such as “GABA transaminase is considered an important means of terminating GABA’s action”. It also contains a list of criteria for the identification of a chemical neurotransmitter, a concept that would appear to be too simple for a book of this stature but interestingly enough, a similar list appears in the following chapter on the pharmacology of cochlear eKerents. There follows three chapters which are the heart of the title namely the ototoxcity of the aminoglycoside antibiotics, the loop diuretics and other ototoxic agents. These three chapters are comprehensive and well documented although the editor has deemed it necessary to add a footnote in one place concerning some earlier work in this area. There is a small section in the chapter on miscellaneous ototoxic agents by D. L. Kisiel and R. P. Bobbin that is devoted to the ototoxic effect of anti-cancer drugs. This area of ototoxcity could very well have been developed further. The preliminary results on cis-diamine dichloroplantinum in clinical ototoxcity are equivocal and it is certainly not justified at this point to say, as the authors do, that such ototoxcity is reversible after the termination of drug therapy. The next two chapters deal with the pharmacology of audiogenic seizures and vestibular pharmacology. They are both useful and well referenced chapters of considerable interest. The final chapter on the clinical applications of auditory electrophysiology by C. 1. Berlin and J. N. Gardi, seems to be an anomaly in a book devoted mainly to pharmacology. Nevertheless it is very well written and rightly underlines the usefulness of the recording of four different types of stimulus responses in difficult diagnostic situations. The use of particular patients to demonstrate its value is well appreciated.
Generally speaking the book should prove to be of immense value to students, researchers and clinicians and should also be good value for those who wish to learn a little more about the auditory system, its vulnerability to drugs and the innumerable research problems that it presents. The publication has been rapid so that its research data is still up to date and, although it is expensive at about f40, it is good value for money. W. E. DAVIES
Fundamentals to a Pharmacology of the Mind, Edited by C. E. GIURGEA,American lecture series, publication No. 1041, Charles C. Thomas, Springfield 1981. This book appears as A Monograph in “The Bannersfone Division of’ American Lectures in Objective Psychiatry” edited by the late W. Horsley Gantt. It was he who stimulated Cornelius E. Giurgea to write this book which encompasses the past, present and future of psychopharmacology. C. E. Giurgea studied medicine in the University of Bucharest, Rumania, worked with P. S. Kupalov in the Institute of Experimental Medicine in Leningrad, U.S.S.R., and at present is an Associate professor at the University of Louvain (UCL), Belgium and Chairman of the UCB-Department of Neuropharmacology, Brussels, Belgium. This book is neither text-book nor essay but something that touches both of them. The author concentrates on the pharmacological control of the mind from the medical and psychiatric perspectives of prevention and treatment. He looks into the past to untangle some of the present puzzles or at least to try to understand from whence they came. Moreover, the author evaluates the impact of Pavlovian and post-Pavlovian schools on Western physiological and pharmacological ways of thinking and working in the area of research into the central nervous system. Finally. the author provides us with an extensive account of the nootropic approach in psychopharmacology. It is the author himself who proposed the term nootropic drugs for a new class of psychotropic drugs whose effects are aimed directly at the mind (piracetam and other drugs with a similar mode of action). This book is divided into ten chapters. The first two of them give a brief synthesis of the history and present status of knowledge on the functional organization of the brain, i.e. an anatomo-physiological view with the emphasis on functional interhemispheric relationships. The following two chapters discuss the functional disorganization of the brain. The premises of and neurogenic procedures used in experimental neuroses (in the terminology of I. P. Pavlov) are explored. Symptomatology. temporal and spatial dynamics of experimental neurosis and some therapeutic considerations are discussed as well. Chapters five to six deal with some general psychopharmacological problems. The author discusses how changes in the functional state of the telencephalic, higher integrative stuctures can modulate drug efficiency. Described among others, are: the placebo effect, druggphysician interaction, drug-motivational interaction, and tonic unconditioned and conditioned psychopharmacological modulations. Chapter six describes how drugs can affect the mind indirectly by their various subcortical impacts. In chapter seven, the most extensive one, the author dis-usses the pharmacology of piracetam, a representative of nootropics, i.e. drugs that affect the mind directly (drugs with selective telencephalic impact). This chapter discusses a variety of experimental data and corresponding pharmaco-clinical correlations. In the following chapter, attention turns to the ontogenetic and environmental modulation in psychopharmacology. Special emphasis is given to pediatric and geriatric psychopharmacology.