Altschul Symposia Series – serie

This volume is made up of papers presented at the Second International Altschul Symposium: Biology and Pathology of Astrocyte-Neuron Interactions. The symposium was held in Saskatoon, Canada at the University of Saskatchewn in May, 1992 in memory of Rudolf Altschul, a graduate of the University of Prague and a pioneer in the fields of the biology of the vascular and nervous systems. Dr. Altschul was Professor and Head of the Department of Anatomy at the University of Saskatchewan from 1955 to 1963. The Altschul Symposia were made possible by an endowment left by Anni Altschul and by other contributions. The symposia are held biennially. One of the greatest challenges for present day scientists is to uncover the mechanisms of brain function. Although cellular anatomy of the nervous system has already been well outlined and indeed was delineated by the beginning of the century, experimental analysis of the function of the brain is relatively recent. The framework of the brain is made up of stellate cells, the astrocytes, which are interconnected by means of their processes, thus presenting a meshwork through which the neurons send their axons, accompanied by oligodendrocytes. Microglia are distributed throughout the brain.

The last decades have witnessed a radical change in our views on central nervous system damage and repair. This change is not only due to the emergence of new powerful tools for the analysis of the brain and its reactions to insults, but it also reflects a conceptual change in the way we approach these problems.

This volume contains the papers which were presented at the First Altschul Symposium, Atherosclerosis: Cellular and Molecular Interactions in the Artery Wall. The symposium was held in Saskatoon, at the University of Saskatchewan in May 1990 in memory of Dr. Rudolph Altschul, a pioneer in the field of vascular biology and the prevention of atherosclerosis. Dr. Altschul was Professor and Head of the Department of Anatomy at the University of Saskatchewan from 1955 to 1963. The challenge for biomedical scientists is to unravel the multifactorial etiology of atherosclerosis. For the last hundred and sixty years, anatomical pathologists have carefully studied the morphological changes of the human vascular wall during the initiation and evolution of the fibrofatty atherosclerotic plaque. Based on these elegant morphological observations, theories on atherogenesis were put forth by pathologists in the 1840's. Rudolf Virchow suggested that the movement of substances from the blood into the vessel wall was important for atherogenesis while Carl von Rokitansky felt that the deposition of substances on the lumenal surface of the artery resulted in the formation of atherosclerotic plaque. Since these original theories, it has become apparent that the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis is multifactorial and the disease evolves in stages. It is also likely that not all plaques arise through the same sequence of events and that many steps are involved in the development of each plaque. Today, our understanding of the complicated processes of atherogenesis is still incomplete.

This volume contains papers presented at the Fourth International Altschul Sympo- sium, held June 27-29, 1996, at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatche- wan, Canada. The Altschul Symposia Series are held in memory of Rudolf Altschul, a graduate of the University of Prague and a pioneer in the fields of vascular and nervous system biology. Dr. Altschul was head of the Department of Anatomy at the University of Saskatchewan from 1955 to 1963. The Altschul Symposia are made possible by an endow- ment left by Anni Altschul, Dr. Altschul's wife, and by other contributions given by the sponsors listed at the end of this Preface. The objective of the Fourth Altschul Symposium, entitled Cell Biologv and Pathol- ogv of Myelin: Evolving Biological Concepts and Therapeutic Approaches, was to facili- tate the transfer of ideas on the biology and pathology of myelin from the research laboratory to the clinic by providing a forum for discussing the evolving biological con- cepts regarding myelin function in health and disease.