Steroid Hormones and Neurosteroids in Normal and Pathological Aging of the Nervous System M
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Digital.CSIC Progress in Neurobiology 71 (2003) 3–29 Steroid hormones and neurosteroids in normal and pathological aging of the nervous system M. Schumacher a,∗, S. Weill-Engerer a, P. Liere a, F. Robert a, R.J.M. Franklin b, L.M. Garcia-Segura c, J.J. Lambert d, W. Mayo e, R.C. Melcangi f, A. Parducz g, U. Suter h, C. Carelli a, E.E. Baulieu a, Y. Akwa a a Inserm U488, 80 rue du Général Leclerc, Kremlin-Bicˆetre 94276, France b Department of Clinical and Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0ES, UK c Instituto Cajal, CSIC, 37 Avenida Doctor Arce, Madrid 28002, Spain d Department of Pharmacology, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 9SY, UK e Inserm U259, Domaine de Carreire, Bordeaux 33077, France f Department of Endocrinology, Center of Excellence on Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of Milan, Milan 20133, Italy g Biological Research Center Szeged, Temesvari krt 62, Szeged 6726, Hungary h Institut of Cell Biology, ETH Hönggerberg, Zürich CH-8093, Switzerland Received 20 June 2003; accepted 11 September 2003 Abstract Without medical progress, dementing diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease will become one of the main causes of disability. Preventing or delaying them has thus become a real challenge for biomedical research. Steroids offer interesting therapeutical opportunities for promoting successful aging because of their pleiotropic effects in the nervous system: they regulate main neurotransmitter systems, promote the viability of neurons, play an important role in myelination and influence cognitive processes, in particular learning and memory.
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