Book Review Stress, the Aging Brain, and the Mechanisms of Neuron Death By Robert M. Sapolsky. 429 pp., illustrated. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1992. $55. 0-262-19320-5
- 30 September 1993
- journal article
- book review
- Published by Massachusetts Medical Society in New England Journal of Medicine
- Vol. 329 (14) , 1049
- https://doi.org/10.1056/nejm199309303291423
Abstract
In this book Dr. Sapolsky, an associate professor of biology at Stanford University and of neuroscience at Stanford University School of Medicine, details his thesis, based on work in rats, that glucocorticoids such as hydrocortisone (cortisol) and dexamethasone damage hippocampal neurons by increasing their sensitivity to ischemic insult or to excitatory neurotoxins, such as kainic acid, that act by stimulating excessive calcium uptake by the neurons. Since the hippocampus normally serves as a target for glucocorticoids and determines the “set-point” of feedback control of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, the deleterious effects of glucocorticoids on the hippocampus could account for accelerating damage to the brain.Keywords
This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: