Contents

#### **Preface XI**


Preface

clinical neuroscience.

The inhibition and excitation of neural networks form the basis of information transfer in the mammalian central nervous system. The key to most complex brain processes lies in the adequate balance between inhibitory and excitatory actions of amino acid neurotransmit‐ ters. The dominant inhibitory neurotransmitter is gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), while the principal excitatory neurotransmitter is glutamate. Furthermore, an increase or a de‐ crease in their activity is associated with a number of neurological and psychiatric diseases. The following seven chapters provide the reader with an overview of the latest research/ review data on GABA/glutamate system organization and function, receptor structure, sub‐

types and their ligands, as well as translational approaches and clinical implications.

The introductory chapter describes the basic functioning and the relevance of GABA/gluta‐ mate balance in the normal brain functioning, focusing on the role of their receptors. The second chapter, titled "Early Life Experience: Maternal Separation, Involvement of GABA and Glutamate Transporters," summarizes scientific data and opinion regarding maternal separation as a model of early life experience of postnatal stress, with focus on the involve‐ ment of GABA and glutamate transporters. The third chapter, "Notch Signaling in the As‐ troglial Phenotype: Relevance to Glutamatergic Transmission," addresses issues related to the role of notch signaling in radial glia, with emphasis on glial glutamate transporter regu‐ lation as a key element in the molecular mechanisms that support glutamatergic neurotrans‐ mission. "Pharmacological Studies with Specific Agonist and Antagonist of Animal iGluR on Root Growth in *Arabidopsis thaliana*" presents original data from a pharmacology-based functional study of ionotropic glutamate receptors (iGluRs) in plants, suggesting a correla‐ tion between the putative iGluR-like channel function and the modification of root growth and development in the Arabidopsis roots. This is followed by a very up-to-date review ti‐ tled "GABA and Glutamate: Their Transmitter Role in the CNS and Pancreatic Islets," in which the authors address not only the role of both neurotransmitters during development but also the extra-neuronal glutamatergic and GABAergic signaling in pancreatic islets of Langerhans, and possible associations with type 1 diabetes mellitus. Further clinical implica‐ tions are discussed in the sixth chapter titled "Antagonists of Ionotropic Receptors for the Inhibitory Neurotransmitter GABA: Therapeutic Indications." The authors examine the an‐ tagonism of ionotropic GABA receptors, reflecting on the use of GABA receptor antagonists in the last 10 years and their possible therapeutic potential. Finally, the chapter "Clinical Ap‐ plications of MR Spectroscopy (MRS) in Neurosciences" delivers a detailed description of the methodology and the relevance of MRS as an important diagnostic and research tool in
