Looking beyond the now widely recognized relationships between stress and physical illness, this accessible and engagingly written book suggests that stress and stress-related hormones can also endanger the brain.

Addressing all those interested in the history of American science and concerned with its future, a leading scholar of public policy explains how and why the Office of Naval Research became the first federal agency to support a wide range of scientific work in universities. Harvey Sapolsky shows that the ONR functioned as a "surrogate national science foundation" between 1946 and 1950 and argues that its activities emerged not from any particularly enlightened position but largely from a bureaucratic accident. Once involved with basic research, however, the ONR challenged a Navy skeptical of the value of independent scientific advice and established a national security rationale that gave American science its Golden Age. Eventually, the ONR's autonomy was worn away in bureaucratic struggles, but Sapolsky demonstrates that its experience holds lessons for those who are committed to the effective management of science and interested in the ability of scientists to choose the directions for their research. As military support for basic research fades, scientists are discovering that they are unprotected from the vagaries of distributive politics. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Possible new breakthroughs in understanding the aging mind that can be used to benefit older people are now emerging from research. This volume identifies the key scientific advances and the opportunities they bring. For example, science has learned that among older adults who do not suffer from Alzheimer's disease or other dementias, cognitive decline may depend less on loss of brain cells than on changes in the health of neurons and neural networks. Research on the processes that maintain neural health shows promise of revealing new ways to promote cognitive functioning in older people. Research is also showing how cognitive functioning depends on the conjunction of biology and culture. The ways older people adapt to changes in their nervous systems, and perhaps the changes themselves, are shaped by past life experiences, present living situations, changing motives, cultural expectations, and emerging technology, as well as by their physical health status and sensory-motor capabilities. Improved understanding of how physical and contextual factors interact can help explain why some cognitive functions are impaired in aging while others are spared and why cognitive capability is impaired in some older adults and spared in others. On the basis of these exciting findings, the report makes specific recommends that the U.S. government support three major new initiatives as the next steps for research.

Handbook of the Aging Brain brings together diverse scientific disciplines to cover the most recent research findings in an easy-to-read summary. Scientists and clinicians will find a wide spectrum of subjects including gerontology, neurology, psychology, molecular biology, and cellular biology. The book includes general chapters on the neuroanatomy and neurobiology of the aging brain, and moves on to discussion of specifics including signal transduction, cell death, and specific cellular and neurological changes associated with dementia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease. Other chapters discuss the affect of aging on learning and memory, language, and cognition.

A comprehensive, multidisciplinary review, Neural Plasticity and Memory: From Genes to Brain Imaging provides an in-depth, up-to-date analysis of the study of the neurobiology of memory. Leading specialists share their scientific experience in the field, covering a wide range of topics where molecular, genetic, behavioral, and brain imaging techniq

Recognition that aging is not the accumulation of disease, but rather comprises fundamental biological processes that are amenable to experimental study, is the basis for the recent growth of experimental biogerontology. As increasingly sophisticated studies provide greater understanding of what occurs in the aging brain and how these changes occur

The brain is the most complex organ in our body. Indeed, it is perhaps the most complex structure we have ever encountered in nature. Both structurally and functionally, there are many peculiarities that differentiate the brain from all other organs. The brain is our connection to the world around us and by governing nervous system and higher function, any disturbance induces severe neurological and psychiatric disorders that can have a devastating effect on quality of life. Our understanding of the physiology and biochemistry of the brain has improved dramatically in the last two decades. In particular, the critical role of cations, including magnesium, has become evident, even if incompletely understood at a mechanistic level. The exact role and regulation of magnesium, in particular, remains elusive, largely because intracellular levels are so difficult to routinely quantify. Nonetheless, the importance of magnesium to normal central nervous system activity is self-evident given the complicated homeostatic mechanisms that maintain the concentration of this cation within strict limits essential for normal physiology and metabolism. There is also considerable accumulating evidence to suggest alterations to some brain functions in both normal and pathological conditions may be linked to alterations in local magnesium concentration. This book, containing chapters written by some of the foremost experts in the field of magnesium research, brings together the latest in experimental and clinical magnesium research as it relates to the central nervous system. It offers a complete and updated view of magnesiums involvement in central nervous system function and in so doing, brings together two main pillars of contemporary neuroscience research, namely providing an explanation for the molecular mechanisms involved in brain function, and emphasizing the connections between the molecular changes and behavior. It is the untiring efforts of those magnesium researchers who have dedicated their lives to unraveling the mysteries of magnesiums role in biological systems that has inspired the collation of this volume of work.