Background: Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a rare painful condition that usually appears after trauma or surgery of the extremities. Symptoms include pain, sensory, sudomotor and vasomotor disturbances, trophic changes impaired motor function. The course varies from mild to chronic disease with high impact on daily functioning quality life. In skin tissue, sustained inflammatory, fibr...

Target-derived neurotrophic factors are assumed to regulate motoneuron cell death during development but remain unspecified. Motoneuron cell death in the spinal nucleus of the bulbocavernosus (SNB) of rats extends postnatally and is controlled by androgens. We exploited these features of the SNB system to identify endogenously produced trophic factors regulating motoneuron survival. Newborn fem...

Cultured embryonic cortical progenitor cells will mimic the temporal differentiation pattern observed in vivo, producing neurons first and then glia. Here, we investigated the role of two endogenously produced growth factors, the neurotrophins brain-derived neurotrophic factor and neurotrophin-3 (NT-3), in the early progenitor-to-neuron transition. Cultured cortical progenitors express BDNF and...

Central nervous system primitive neuroectodermal tumors (PNET) including cerebellar PNET (medulloblastoma, PNET/ MB) are the most common malignant brain tumors in childhood. Because of the high risk of leptomeningeal dissemination, standard postoperative treatment for PNET includes craniospinal radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Such treatment causes long-term morbidity including endocrine and grow...