Blood in Motion is a textbook in Cardiovascular Science. It sets out to introduce, entice and explain the cardiovascular system to the reader using a classical system in teaching anatomy, physiology, general operation and specific systems. It is specifically designed to support the interests of students, experienced physiologists and clinicians. The book is subdivided into three parts, comprising a total of 11 chapters. Part I presents an historical perspective of cardiovascular knowledge and complements it with current insight into the physiology of the cardiovascular system. Part II explores sections of the circulatory loop, starting with an in-depth treatment of the veins, and including the lymphatic, the microcirculation, the arterial system and the heart. Part III incorporates approaches to the cardiovascular system as a whole, both in physiology and in science, such as modeling. This section introduces impedance-defined flow and offers the reader its application in mathematical modeling. At the end of each chapter, the reader will find questions designed to reinforce the information presented. Each chapter can be read or studied as an independent unit.

Cook et al.: Phospholipases C and D in Mitogenic Signal Transduction. Moolenaar et al: Lysophosphatidatic Acid: A Bioactive Phospholipid with Growth Factor-Like Properties. Kozma et al.: Serine/Threonine Kinases in thePropagation of the Early Mitogenic Response. Diringer et al: A Retrospective on Transformation, Growth Control, and some Peculiarities of Lipid Metabolism. Villereal et al.: Calcium Signals in Growth Factor Signal Transduction. Wakabayashi et al.: Structure Function of the Growth Factor-Activatable Na+/H+ Exchanger. Herrlich et al.: DNA Damage-Induces Gene Expression: Signal Transduction and Relation to Growth Factor Signaling. Lucibello et al.: Transcription Factor Encoding Oncogenes

In this regular issue of Reviews of Physiology the first contribution by Warth and Bleich is on K+ Channels and Colonic Function, the second by Offermanns on Mammalian G-Protein Function in vivo: New Insights Through Altered Expression, and the third contribution by Tenenholz et al. (including one editor of the series) on Structural Determinants of Scorpion Toxin Affinity: The Charybdotoxin (alpha-KTX) Family of K+-channel Blocking Peptides.

S. Geley,M. Fiegl, B.L. Hartmann, R. Kofler: Genes Mediating Glucocorticoid Effects and Mechanisms of Their Regulation J.O. Holloszy, P.A. Hansen: Regulation of Glucose Transport into Skeletal Muscle F. Lehmann-Horn, R. Rudel: Molecular Pathophysiology of Voltage-Gated Ion Channels

Cardiac ion channels and mechanisms for protection against atrial fibrillation. Intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells. Quantifying and modeling the temperature-dependent gating of TRP channels.

This collection of reviews will be of considerable interests to biologists and MDs working on any aspect of cardiovascular function. With state-of-the-art reviews written by competent experts in the field, the content is also of interest for MSc and PhD students in most fields of cardiovascular physiology.

Regeneration, the homeostatic ability to maintain tissue structure in the face of normal cell turnover or loss of tissue damaged by trauma or disease, is an essential developmental process that continues throughout life. As recently as a decade ago, any serious discussion of the possibility of regeneration becoming a practical medical tool in the near future had the air of science fiction or over-optimistic speculation. The term "regenerative medicine" was certainly on many lips but few actually expected to soon see it applied in a clinical setting. A tidal wave of discovery has changed that and investigating the cellular mechanisms of natural regeneration has become one of the hottest topics in developmental biology and biomedicine in general. Many researchers entering the field find that the regeneration literature is still quite diffuse perhaps owing to the disparate biological systems that have been the object of study including hydra, planaria, newts, axolotls and more recently several mouse strains. The volume editors believe that an attempt to organize or systematize the literature is long overdue. In this volume, respected experts highlight the latest findings in vertebrate (including mammals) wound healing and regeneration. They present eleven reviews that cover a wide range of topics, from wound repair and its relationship to regeneration, through systems including lenticular, neural, and musculoskeletal tissues and limbs, to epigenetics and the role of the cell cycle. Nuclear reprogramming and cellular plasticity, which open the door for potential regenerative medical therapies for injury and degenerative disease, are recurring themes throughout the book. We are all now part of the regeneration revolution.

This book collects articles on the biology of hematopoietic stem cells during embryonic development, reporting on fly, fish, avian and mammalian models. The text invites a comparative overview of hematopoietic stem cell generation in the different classes, emphasizing conserved trends in development. The book reviews current knowledge on human hematopoietic development and discusses recent breakthroughs of relevance to both researchers and clinicians.

This volume synthesizes pathways in respiratory mechanics and the dynamics of air-blood and blood-cellular gas exchange for students and teachers in respiratory physiology. The authors strive to make physiology fun to learn. This aspect of knowledge acquisition is reflected in the way topics are approached, for example by using playing cards in what is coined 'Respi-CARDology'. The first section of this book reviews the framework and foundations of basic respiratory physiology. Since this book was not written to be a comprehensive physiology text, the authors have focused on leading students to appreciate and understand integrative principles and homeostatic mechanisms in lung function. The second section of this book mainly deals with the clinical application of fundamental knowledge of respiratory physiology.

In this volume of Reviews of Physiology we present three articles on modulation of PKC in antitumor treatment, compartment-specific functions of the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway and transgenic models of alpha2-adrenergic receptor subtype function.

Cardiovascular fluid mechanics is now used as a tool in determining diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis by physicians and surgeons working in the fields of cardiology and angiology. The text is based on a considerable amount of clinical and experimental data on blood flow in the heart and large vessels obtained using various methods such as ultrasound pulsed Doppler velocimetry (including Doppler color flow imaging), catheter-tip electromagnetic velocimetry, hot-film anemometry, and laser Doppler velocimetry. The book will introduce medical researchers and clinicians to this rapidly developing field and allow them to apply the knowledge and the methods of fluid mechanics to practical medicine.

Information flow as nerve impulses in neuronal circuits is regulated at synapses. The synapse is therefore a key element for information processing in the brain. Much attention has been given to fast synaptic transmission, which predominantly regulates impulse-to-impulse transmission. Slow synaptic transmission and modu lation, however, sometimes have been neglected in considering and attempting to understand brain function. Slow synaptic potentials and modulation occur with a considerable delay in response to the accumulation of synaptic and modulatory inputs. In these contexts, they are plastic in nature and play important roles in information processing in the brain. A symposium titled "Slow Synaptic Responses and Modulation" was held as the satellite symposium to the 75th Annual Meeting of the Physiological Society of Japan on March 30-31, 1998, in Kanazawa. The theme was selected not only for the reason mentioned above, but also because of the considerable involvement of many Japanese scholars in establishing the basic issues. Following the dawn of synaptic physiological research, as Sir John Eccles, Sir Bernard Katz, and Professor Stephen Kuffler carried out pioneer work, Professor Kyozou Koketsu and Professor Benjamin Libet, the students of Sir John Eccles, and their colleagues established the concept of slow synaptic responses and modulation by studying vertebrate sympathetic ganglia. Since then, the concept has been ex panded with detailed investigations of both peripheral and central synapses at the levels of single ion channels, intracellular Ca"+ dynamics, intracellular transduc tion mechanisms, and genes.

The primary goal of this book is to survey issues pertaining to coronary venous retroperfusion, a potentially beneficial treatment of myocardial ischemia. Since attention will be focused on the myocardium, its normal or deranged antegrade perfusion will be discussed first, along with factors affecting blood supply to region ally ischemic tissue. After pointing to coronary reperfusion and its rapidly expand ing applications, the principle of coronary venous interventions will be discussed. Recent anatomic observations are presented to clarify features of the coronary venous sytems, some of which remain inadequately defined, yet play a crucial role in determining effectiveness of all retrograde methods. The remainder of the text concentrates on the development of retroperfusion sytems designed for retrograde treatment of myocardium jeopardized by deficient ante grade blood delivery, sec ondary to coronary artery obstruction. Retroinfusion of contrast is also considered as a potential diagnostic tool. The final chapter of the book reports on recent efforts aimed at a mathematical modeling of mechanisms and effects of coronary venous interventions."

The study of signal transduction mechanisms has become one of the most important branches of biomedical science, indispensable to understanding the normal actions of hormones, neurotransmitters and other extracellular signaling molecules as well as many pathophysiological processes, including inflammation and cancer. In this volume, the various techniques for measuring Ca2+ in the cytosol, in the various organelles, and in the immediate surroundings of individual cells are described in practical detail by experts. Also included is a chapter on tracking calmodulin inside cells using fluorescence technology. A Springer Lab Manual

Book chapters are authored by participants in the International Meeting on "Staging Neuropsychiatric Disorders: Implications for Etiopathogenesis and Treatment," held in Mojacar (Almeria) Spain from 14-18 October 2009. Chapters are organized into four sections on themes encompassed by Staging Neuropsychiatric Disorders: 1) Clinical Staging in the Pathophysiology of Psychotic and Affective Disorders, 2) Staging Perspectives in Neurodevelopmental Aspects of Neuropsychiatry, 3) Epigenetics and Biomarkers in the Staging of Neuropsychiatric Disorders, and 4) Staging Neurodegenerative Disorders. This volume should serve as a resource for physicians and neuroscientists alike, highlighting the importance of staging neuropsychiatric disorders and the underlying mechanistic dysfunction, for prevention and treatment strategies at different stages of disease progression."

The concept of homeostasis, the maintenance of the internal physiological environment of an organism within tolerable limits, is well established in medicine and physiology. In contrast, allostasis is a relatively new idea of 'viability through change'. With allostatic regulation by cephalic involvement, the body adapts to potentially diverse and dangerous situations through the activation of neural, hormonal, or immunological mechanisms. Allostasis explains how regulatory events maintain organismic viability, or not, in diverse contexts with varying set points of bodily needs and competing motivations. This 2005 book introduces the concept of allostasis and sets it alongside traditional views of homeostasis. It addresses basic regulatory systems and examines the behavior of bodily regulation under duress. The basic concepts of physiological homeostasis are integrated with disorders like depression, stress, anxiety and addiction. It will therefore appeal to graduate students, medical students and researchers working in physiology, epidemiology, endocrinology, neuroendocrinology, neuroscience, and psychology.

Induced pluripotent stem cells in cardiovascular research.- TRPs in the brain.- The channel physiology of the skin.

In this volume of Reviews there are three outstanding articles, one on phspholipase D, an enzyme that is widely distributed in bacteria, protozoa, fungi, plants and animals. Phospholipase D carries out a transphosphatidylation reaction, which is unique to this enzyme. This review is focussed on mammalian PLDs. The second review deals with endotoxin tolerance, the term which describes the phenomenon that immune responses and metabolic changes are mitigated after repeated LPS administration. The third article summarizes the current knowledge relevant to understanding the molecular basis of GPCR function and focusses on the underlying mechanisms of GPCR malfunctions responsible for diferent human diseases.

Protein transport events occurring at the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of eukaryotic cells and the cytoplasmic membrane of prokaryotic organisms share many similarities. Resident proteins of both membranes span the lipid bilayer once or several times by a-helical stretches and their integration is usually mediated by uncleaved signal-anchor sequences. Proteins that are translocated across either membrane, collectively also termed secretory proteins, harbour cleavable N-terminal signal sequences. Prokaryotic and eukaryotic signal sequences have the same modular structure and are functionally exchangeable. Integration of membrane proteins and translocation of secretory proteins basically occur at the same sites (pores) within each membrane. In both types of membranes, these pores are c- posed of homologous components forming the Sec translocons. Parts of the Sec trans- cons are found populated by ribosomes, the membrane-bound ribosomes. Bacterial m- brane and eukaryotic secretory proteins are targeted to the Sec translocons by the same molecular mechanism involving signal recognition particle (SRP) and its receptor (SRP - ceptor, SR). Structure and assembly of the SRP The functional core of SRP The functional core of this ribonucleoprotein complex consists of the signal sequence binding subunit (SRP54 in eukaryotes and Ffh in prokaryotes) and the SRP RNA molecule (see Fig. 1). This core is conserved in all organisms, with the intriguing exception of chloroplasts, where the SRP lacks the RNA subunit.

In the series Reviews of Physiology, Biochemistry and Pharmacology three excellent contributions by Ruth Heidelberger (Houston, TX, USA) with Electrophysiological Approaches to the Study of Neuronal Exocytosis and Synaptic Vesicle Dynamics and Kay Truscott et al. (Freiburg, Germany) with Transport of Proteins Into Mitochondria and Randall K. Powers and Marc D. Binder (Seattle, WA, USA) with Input-Output Functions of Mammalian Motoneurons form another outstanding volume.

It has been known for over 150 years that hallmarks of inflammation can be observed in the wall of atherosclerotic vessels. It was, however, not clear if this inflammation is the cause or the consequence of atherogenesis. More recently, it has become evident that inflammation mediated both by innate and adaptive immunity is instrumental even in the earliest stages of the development of atherosclerotic lesions, i.e., that it plays an important pathogenetic role. In this volume, international experts in the field discuss the pathogenetic, diagnostic, preventive and possible therapeutic relevance of inflammation in atherogenesis. This book is intended for researchers and physicians in the fields of vascular biology, immunology and atherosclerosis.

Based on the 38th annual conference of the International Society on Oxygen Transport to Tissue (ISOTT), held in Ascona, Switzerland in July 2010, this volume covers all aspects of oxygen transport from air to the cells, as well as looking at organs and organism, instrumentation, and methods to sense oxygen and clinical evidence.