werner@aecom.UUCP (01/17/87)
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! Nerve Growth Factor Treatment After Brain Injury Prevents Neuronal Death
! Kromer LF
! Science 235:214 (9 Jan 1987)
Cholinergic neuronal degeneration after axotomy has been proposed
to be due to the loss of a retrogradely transported neurotropic factor,
possibly nerve growth factor (NGF). To test this hypothesis, NGF was
continuously infused into the lateral ventricles of adult rats that had
received bilateral lesions of all cholinergic axons projecting from the
medial septum to the dorsal hippocampus. After two weeks of NGF
treatment, identification of cholinergic neurons by the presence of the
biosynthetic enzyme choline acetyltransferase revealed a dramatic increase
(350%) in the survival of the axotomized septal cholinergic neurons.
Thus, NGF or an NGF-like molecule can act as a neurotropic factor for
these neurons.
Note 1: Nerve Growth factor is crucial for the normal development and
maintenace of peripheral sympathetic and sensory ganglia.
Note 2: For her 1951 discovery of Nerve Growth Factor, Rita Levi-Montalcini
shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
--
Craig Werner (MD/PhD '91)
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