Molecular neurobiology

Gordon Guroff has attempted in this volume to provide an outline of neurochemistry "designed to progress from structure through chemistry to function" and, indeed, to pathology as well. Any criticism of the book must keep in mind the sheer enormity of the task that Dr. Gurnoff chose to undertake. The present volume is most useful and readable in the areas of amino acid metabolism in brain, its differences from other tissues, and in the pathology produced by discrete biochemical lesions in many of the pathways. These are areas in which the author has made important original contributions and where the incorporation in the text of clinical "case histories" is most successful. Unfortunately, many topics are shortchanged; for example, all of synaptic neurobiology, from membrane potential through a catalogue of neurotransmitters, is given no more than 25 pages. Other important areas, such as bioenergetics, fare even worse. The book seems to have suffered from publishing delays, and carelessness. Few developments beyond 1976 are mentioned, and the handful of 1977 references are mostly from the Bethesda campus. This is most regrettable, and leads to startling statements such as "there are no serotonergic neurons known outside the brain" (p. 196). A careful editor would have also corrected the contradiction on the distribution of CAT on p. 421. One can only hope that a second, more carefully prepared edition would better do justice to Dr. Guroff's gargantuan undertaking.