BIOCHEMISTRY OF THE DEVELOPING NERVOUS SYSTEM

In the past decade interest in the chemistry of the nervous system has been intensified as the enormous possibilities in this field have become appreciated. In recent years several books have been published dealing with the chemistry of the brain, some of them new editions of earlier publications. Large numbers of neurochemical investigations are scattered through the scientific journals concerned with biochemistry, pharmacology, physiology, experimental zoology, anatomy, and neurology, and in the current year a new journal devoted entirely to neurochemistry has been established. American workers have organized three symposia on the subject, and the proceedings of the first have been published. The people working in this field have felt the need to meet together not only for exchange of views and information but especially to express their point of view which is so aptly put in their preface by the editors of the book here reviewed: “We agreed also that from the start it would be well to consider the brain as a biological entity in all its complexity of morphology and function, rather than as a homogenate, or an engineering problem.” This multidisciplinary approach was thoroughly carried out in the first International Symposium on Neurochemistry held at Oxford in 1954 and published in this volume. The book is divided into six sections: 1. Morphological and functional ontogeny of the central nervous system; 2. chemical composition of the developing nervous system; 3. dynamic biochemistry of the developing nervous system; 4. enzymatic differentiation in relation to function; 5. cellular chemistry, and 6. intrinsic and extrinsic factors in the development of the nervous system. As forty-four papers are included, together with the record of discussion that followed each, it is impossible to comment on all of them in the short space of this review. The book opens with an admirably concise and compact survey of the early development of the nervous system by J. D. Boyd, who points out several of the problems in the embryology of the CNS which badly need the attention of professional chemists. Essentially the same topics are further elaborated by Viktor Hamburger in a stimulating discussion on experimental neuroembryology, and a chapter by R. W. Sperry dealing with nerve specificity in local cutaneous sign was sufficiently provocative to make several of those participating in the discussion acutely unhappy. Among the more strictly chemical papers, those by Folch-Pi on quantitative changes in lipid and protein during development and by D. Richter on the metabolism of the developing brain are outstanding.