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Proceedings of the Fifteenth Washington International Spring Symposium held at The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., May 15-17, 1995

The dramatic advances in molecular genetics are becoming incorporated into neurobiologic studies at an ever increasing rate. In developmental neurobiology, the importance of cell­ cell interactions for neurogenesis and gene expression is be­ ginning to be understood in terms of the molecular bases for these interactions. This book seeks to emphasize the importance of molecular technology in the study of neurogenetic mechanisms and to explore the possible relationships between specific cell­ cell interactions and regulated gene expression in the develop­ ing nervous ~stem. This volume consists of nineteen chapters which address ques­ tions of gene expression and the importance of cell-cell interac­ tions as key factors in the developing nervous ~stem. Rather than viewing these two processes as separate mechanisms, as the organi­ zation of these chapters might suggest, we would like to emphasize the interplay of these genetic and epigenetic influences in all phases of neural ontogeny, a concept which is made clear by the subject matter of the contributions themselves. The authors of these chapters were participants in selected ~mposia from the Fourth Congress of the International Society of Developmental Neuroscience held in Salt Lake City, Utah, July 3-7, 1983.

There was once an old Chinese man working on a hill with a boy. On the plain, near the sea, rested the village, the inhabitants eagerly engaged in their daily activities. Suddenly, the old man noticed that a huge wave, far distant in the sea, was approaching the shore endangering all. The only safe place was the hill. So, he began waving his hands and screaming aloud, to no avail. The villagers were too busy with their own work and paid little heed to the old man, who was considered a bit eccentric. But soon flames were on the hill, the wheat fields ablaze. The old man had resorted to this ultimate step to alert his fellow citizens. Now, they all went running towards him, angry about their burning crop, and in the process, avoided the imminent danger. For some mysterious reason, my mind focused on this story prior to the Symposium on the Role of DNA, which took place in Ravello, Italy at the end of May 1985. Having made a call for people to meet and reflect for a few days, the analogy began to take shape. Ravello was indeed a hill, magically overlooking the sea from medieval quarters. True, its countryside is filled with vineyards, not wheat fields, but that is an improvement on the story. However, what was the wave? Perhaps, the growing amount of data on cloned brain genes that threatens to engulf neurobiologists.

The last decades have witnessed a radical change in our views on central nervous system damage and repair. This change is not only due to the emergence of new powerful tools for the analysis of the brain and its reactions to insults, but it also reflects a conceptual change in the way we approach these problems. As an illustration to this development, it is instructive to go back to the proceedings of a meeting at the NIH in 1955 edited by William F. Windle, which summarizes the disillusioned and pessimistic view on CNS regeneration prevailing at the time. While this generation of researchers were well aware of the issues at stake, they felt they had reached the end of the road; the approaches they had pursued had got stuck and the tools available could not take them any further. I can very well imagine that the participants, most of them leaders in the field, left that conference feeling they had heard their field being sentenced to death.

This book addresses the biological, moral and legal issues which arising prenatal testing of late onset neurogenetic disease. The contributors focus specifically on Huntington's Disease, which is used as a model for other late onset neurogenetic diseases. The ethical and legal aspects of prenatal testing and preimplantation genetic diagnosis are di

Gene expression is an active ongoing process that maintains a functional CNS, as proteins are being made on a continual basis. Processes such as learning and memory, nerve cell repair and regeneration and its response to stress are critically dependent on gene expression. This volume highlights the role of gene expression in normal CNS function, and presents many research methods at the cutting edge of neuroscience, which will provide insight into therapeutic approaches through which the control of gene expression may be used in the treatment of many nervous system diseases.