Modulators, Mediators, and Specifiers in Brain Function, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1979
Interactions of Neuropeptides, Cyclic Nucleotides, and Phosphoproteins in Mechanisms Underlying Neuronal Activity, Behavior, and Neuropsychiatric Disorders
Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology Series, Vol. 116

While neuroanatomy and neurophysiology were defining the unique features of the synapse as a site for cell to cell signaling in the late fifties, neurochemistry was establishing the identity and studying the biosynthetic pathways of monoamine neurotransmitters. Meanwhile, neuropsychiatry was keeping a vigilant eye on the outcome of this concerted effort with the untold hope that a genetic defect in neurotransmitter metabolism would ac­ count for the pathogenesis of certain psychiatric ill­ nesses. Thus, when neurochemists in the early sixties began to study the feasibility of measuring the metabolism of brain neurotransmitters in vivo, clinical biochemists eagerly adopted these methods to their needs and sought to verify whether inborn errors of transmitter biogenesis were a cause for at least certain forms of depression, mania and schizophrenia. Undoubtedly, it is still too early to evaluate the outcome of these studies. However, current opinion holds that gross inborn errors in transmitter metabolism do not anpear to be operative as a primary cause of psychia­ tric disorders. Though monoamine metabolism appears to be defective in certain groups of psychiatric disorders, the cause of these changes can at best be associated with changes in patterns of neuronal firing. It is generally believed that these persistent changes are determined by a number of unknown factors operative in various psychia­ tric illnesses. In the attempt to identify the molecular nature of these unknown factors, the focus of current research is directed toward transmitter receptors.

Section I Mechanisms of Neuronal Communication.- Three Modes of Communication in the Nervous System.- Do Behaviorally Active Polypeptide Hormones Act at Crucial “Command” Sites or at Many Sites, from “Command” Down to “Final Common Paths”?.- Neurotransmitters and Neuromodulators and their Mediation by Cyclic Nucleotides.- Metabolism Factors Affecting Grain Cyclic Nucleotides.- Phosphoproteins as Specifiers for Mediators and Modulators in Neuronal Function.- Phosphoproteins as Proposed Modulators of Visual Function.- Evidence for the Presence of Substrates for cGMP Dependent Protein Phosphorylation in Human Synaptosomal Membranes.- Section II Interactions of Neuropeptides, Cyclic Nucleotides and Phosphoproteins in Mechanisms Underlying Receptor Function.- Regulation of Central Adrenergic Receptors.- Regulation of the Neuroblastoma X Glioma Hybrid Opiate Receptors by Na+ and Guanine Nucleotides.- Phosphorylation of the Acetylcholine Receptor.- The Behaviorally Active Neuropeptide ACTH as Neurohormone and Neuromodulator: The Role of Cyclic Nucleotides and Membrane Phosphoproteins.- Opioid Peptides as Modulators of Cyclic AMP Levels.- Opioid Peptides and Protein Phosphorylation.- Section III Clinical Implications.- Adaptive Alterations in Receptor Mediated Processes and Their Implications for some Mental Disorders.- Endorphins and Clinical Pain, An Overview.- The Obesity of Middle Age: A Common Variety of Cushing’s Syndrome due to a Chronic Increase in Adrenocorticotrophin (ACTH) and Beta- Endorphin Activity.- Hormonal and Other Effects of Naltrexone in Normal Men.- Measurement of ß-Endorphin-Like Immunoreactivity in CSF and Plasma of Neuropsychiatric Patients.