Sections
Chemical Messengers: Introduction | Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptor System | Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor System | <img src='images/special/gammalower.gif' border='0'/>-Aminobutyric Acid
Receptors | Glutamate | Serotonin | Dopamine | Norepinephrine | Histamine | Neurosteroids | Neuropeptides | Other Chemical Messengers | Conclusion | Key Points | References | Suggested Readings
Excerpt
The clinical treatment of age-related diseases
such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) has evolved from the initial challenges
of simple recognition of the disorders, to attempts to delineate
components important in the pathogenesis of those disorders, to
attempts to define biomarkers that could be used for early detection
of the onset of those disorders. Before attempting to determine
which types of markers would be relevant for a given disease, however,
one must be familiar with the molecules responsible for mediating
the physiological responses that are being altered with age. The
list of chemical messengers in the human body is extremely long,
but many primary physiological functions can be attributed to the
functions of a much smaller subset of messengers. In this chapter,
we focus on specific receptor-mediated signaling systems, the molecules
that transmit the cellular signals associated with them, and any
compounds that have thus far appeared to be beneficial for the treatment
of age-related disorders through these systems.