review articles, many from colleagues and collaborators of BOOK REVIEW Professor Riederer. Researchers from all over the world have contributed. The articles are divided into 5 sections: “Basic Neuropsychiatric Disorders: An ,” “Parkinson’s Disease and Allied Conditions,” Integrative Approach “Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders,” “Biological Psy- chiatry,” and “Other Disorders.” Thirty-one articles represent M. Gerlach, J. Deckert, K. Double, and E. Koutsilieri, eds. New original research and are presented in the format of the Journal York: SpringerWien; 2007, 341 pages, 109 figures, $229.00. of Neural Transmission. Graphs, tables, and figures are clearly he Journal of Neural Transmission is a very well-respected presented and labeled. A partial list of methodologies repre- Tpeer-reviewed journal in the field of neuroscience. This sented includes research on postmortem human or animal 2007 supplement volume, entitled Neuropsychiatric Disorders: brains, cultured animal or human neuronal cell lines, clinical An Integrative Approach, is a Festschrift in honor of Professor trials in humans, knockdown animals, therapeutic drug mon- Peter Riederer, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal, who retired in itoring, and stem cells. April 2007. Dr. Riederer was Professor of Clinical Neuro- Eight review articles are sprinkled throughout the volume, chemistry in the Clinic for and Psychotherapy at unfortunately not clearly marked as such, though the titles of the University of Wu¨rzburg, , and is an enormously some suggest their nature. Topics range from an extensive influential neurochemist, who authored more than 900 papers review of the therapeutic potential of small inhibitory ribonu- and book chapters and helped launch the careers of many cleic acid in the gene therapy of neurodegenerative disorders successful scientists. His areas of interest include the neuro- (Koutsilieri et al) to a brief introduction to animal models of chemistry of and mechanisms of neurodegen- neurodegenerative disorders (Hirsch). Other topics related to eration in Alzheimer disease and Parkinson disease. neurodegenerative disorders include the following: an histor- The editors of this supplement have put together an im- ical overview of the biochemistry of postmortem Parkinson pressive array of papers to celebrate Dr. Riederer’s work and disease brains (Nagatsu and Sawada); apoptosis, oxidative contributions to the field. Following a brief editorial preface stress, and mitochondrial dysfunction in lymphocytes as bi- that provides an overview of Dr. Riederer’s career, the volume omarkers for Alzheimer disease (Leuner et al); an experimen- begins with a moving dedication by a collaborator, Dr. M.B.H. tal animal model of early sporadic Alzheimer disease and the Youdim of the Israel Institute of Technology. Dr. Youdim de- role of central insulin resistance (Salkovic-Petrisic and scribes his own experiences and the richness of his collabora- Hoyer); and kynurenines, redox disturbances, and neurode- tion with Dr. Riederer, which resulted in nearly 100 coau- generation in multiple sclerosis (Rajda et al). In the biologic thored papers and 25 books. Despite some awkwardness of psychiatry section, the 2 reviews focus on attention and language, the excitement of the early discovery of the efficacy graphomotor functions in children with attention deficit hy- of l-deprenyl in Parkinson disease is clearly conveyed, and as peractivity disorder (Lange et al) and the immunologic bases Dr. Youdim notes, “The rest is history.” The reader gets an of glutamatergic disturbance in schizophrenia (Nudmamud- impression of how important Professor Riederer could be in Thanoi et al). inspiring other scientists and promoting novel ideas. Only 1 imaging article is presented in this volume. The The second article in the supplement volume consists of a authors (Fischer et al) present data from the VITA study, a “Brief History of ” and is written by P. Foley prospective longitudinal study on mental aging in which all of the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, Sydney, individuals in a defined geographic birth-cohort in Australia. Dr. Foley explores the history of research on intra- were invited to participate. The research presented here inves- cellular communication in the central nervous system and de- tigated deep and periventricular white matter hyperintensities scribes the major findings and interpretations as neurochem- in 532 subjects, 75–76 years of age. Periventricular hyperinten- istry “graduated from a branch of general physiology to being sities were more frequently found in subjects with focal vascu- centrally involved in models lar lesions on MR imaging. Deep white matter hyperintensities of central nervous system were associated with antihypertensive treatment. Associations function.” The article is en- of both were found with focal atrophy of the medial temporal joyable and contains historic lobe structures. The authors concluded that both vascular and quotes that give an inside look degenerative factors may favor the occurrence of white matter into the thinking of some of hyperintensities in this age group. the leaders in neurochemis- As a compendium of research articles in some of the key try. Dr. Foley takes us through areas of basic and clinical neuroscience research, this book is the introduction of L-dopa most relevant for neuroscience researchers. The book as a therapy for parkinsonism, a whole is less likely to be of interest to a clinical neuroradiolo- milestone for neuropharma- gist, though individual articles may be. Individual articles are cologic research. listed in Current Contents/Life Sciences (Thomson Scientific) The remaining articles in and are searchable via Medline. Review articles particularly the supplement volume are may be of more general interest. original research articles and DOI 10.3174/ajnr.A1048

E100 Book Reviews ͉ AJNR 29 ͉ Nov-Dec 2008 ͉ www.ajnr.org