Preface

Acute brain injury is associated with considerable short-term and long-term morbidity and mortality. The increasing effort devoted to understanding the cellular pathways and key molecules involved in acute brain injury, together with identifying markers that can improve diagnostic and prognostic accuracy, has provided the impetus for the construction of this book.

It is the goal of this book to provide a forum for clinical experts to present recent data on biomarkers and advanced neuroimaging modalities for acute brain injury. It also brings together scientific experts to present the state of the art in their fields. It is my hope that the topics covered herein will provide new information on the cellular and biochemical mechanisms involved in acute brain injury and that this knowledge will lead to a more effective approach to recognition and clinical management.

I wish to express my deep appreciation to each of the chapter authors for the time and effort spent on writing informative reviews on their respective areas of clinical and research interest. Also, I wish to express my gratitude to Professor Svetlana Dambinova for helping me to plan and organize the book chapters, and to my co-editors Professor Svetlana Dambinova, Professor Thomas A. Gennarelli, and Dr Bridget Martinez. I also wish to thank Rowan Frame and Dr Hannah Aitchison of the Royal Society of Chemistry for their help, support, and patience in the course of putting together this book.

Philip V. Peplow