Jones, Hazel C

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Cerebrospinal Fluid Research
Open AccessBook review
An important reference book for research on barriers between 
blood and the CNS
Hazel C Jones*1,2
Address: 1Department of Pharmacology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610, USA and 2Gagle Brook House, Chesterton, Bicester, Oxon 
OX26 1UF, United Kingdom
Email: Hazel C Jones* - hjones@ufl.edu
* Corresponding author    
Book details
Blood-Spinal Cord and Brain Barriers in Health and Disease 
Edited by: Hari Shanker Sharma, Jan Westerman. Elsevier 
Academic Press, San Diego, CA; 2004.  Library of Congress 
Publication Control Number: 2003102998, ISBN: 0-12-
639011-8, 605 pages, £110.00, reviewed by Hazel C. Jones, 
University of Florida.
The health of the central nervous system (CNS) is a sub-
ject that impacts on all people and especially on those
who have the misfortune to be afflicted by CNS injury or
disease. The cerebrovascular barriers at the CNS capillaries
and the choroid plexus play a vital role in maintaining the
microenvironment of the cells in the brain and spinal
cord. The stated aim of this book is to act as a stimulus for
research directed towards minimizing the effects of CNS
stress, injuries and insults. With seven sections that
include 27 chapters from 59 contributors and 605 pages
in total, this book covers many topics including: basic
aspects of the barriers, in vitro models, physiological trans-
port mechanisms, neurochemical mediators, stress situa-
tions, changes in disease conditions and clinical aspects.
Each chapter consists of a review, together with up-to-date
original data. The chapters are laid out clearly in a consist-
ent format with informative illustrations.
This is an important wide-ranging book aimed at
researchers in neuroscience, drug discovery and develop-
ment, and neuropathology. Although large, it contains a
wealth of information on contemporary research with an
impressive 29-page index from arachadonic acid to zonula
occludens proteins. The bulk of the text deals with research
relating to the cerebrovascular barriers in the brain. How-
ever, in contrast with past books on the blood-brain bar-
riers, this one contains several chapters concerned with
the blood-spinal cord barrier. Considering the volume of
research on spinal cord injury in recent decades, this
serves as a useful source of information and a reminder
that barrier function is important throughout the CNS.
Furthermore, it reinforces the probability that informa-
tion obtained from research on barriers in the brain can
be applied to the therapeutic treatment of spinal cord
injury.
One rather disappointing aspect of this otherwise excel-
lent book is the small amount of space devoted to the
choroid plexus and the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). This is
the alternative route to the brain, the blood-CSF barrier
with somewhat different properties to the blood-brain
barrier. Only two chapters contribute to this very impor-
tant aspect of brain homeostasis and to the potential for
manipulation of the CSF for diagnostic and therapeutic
purposes.
Overall, 'Blood-Spinal Cord and Brain Barriers in Health
and Disease' is a contemporary and very informative vol-
ume that should be a ready source of reference for all
researchers and clinicians concerned with the CNS in
health and disease.
Competing interests
The author(s) declare that they have no competing inter-
ests.
Authors' contributions
Sole author
Published: 12 June 2005
Cerebrospinal Fluid Research 2005, 2:1 doi:10.1186/1743-8454-2-1
Received: 01 June 2005
Accepted: 12 June 2005
This article is available from: http://www.cerebrospinalfluidresearch.com/content/2/1/1
© 2005 Jones; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), 
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


 Edited by: Hari Shanker Sharma, Jan Westerman. Elsevier Academic Press, San Diego, CA; 2004.

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