Neurobiology of Body Fluid Homeostasis: Transduction and Integration PDF

Preface

Life of terrestrial vertebrates depends on the maintenance of water and salt in the extracellular compartment ("internal milieu") within strictly regulated boundaries. Recognition of this fact was the basis upon which Walter Cannon* formulated his definition of the term homeostasis almost a century ago. This book, Neurobiology of Body Fluid Homeostasis: Transduction and Integration, was inspired by Cannon's definition, and it is the result of an invitation made by the Frontiers in Neuroscience Series editors, Sidney Simon and Miguel Nicolelis, to produce a volume based on an international symposium with a similar title.

The symposium was held in Araraquara, São Paulo, Brazil, in September 2011 and was convened as an official satellite of a joint meeting held in Buzios, Rio de Janeiro, of the International Society for Autonomic Neuroscience (ISAN) and the American Autonomic Society (AAS).†,‡ The initial proposal for a satellite symposium on body fluid homeostasis was made by the chair of the Local Organizing Committee, Professor Sérgio Cravo, and it was selected by the International Programming Committee of ISAN-AAS. The symposium attracted speakers from countries across the globe (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Israel, and United States) and from states representing several different regions of Brazil (Bahia, Goiás, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo) and it was sponsored by CAPES, Brazilian Society of Physiology (SBFis), Joint Graduate Program in Physiological Sciences (PIPGCF UFSCar-UNESP), FAPESP, and UNESP,^§ which allowed for their support. Such broad international participation generated stimulating discussion among the invited speakers, faculty and young investigators (post-doctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students) presenting their work at the symposium and ultimately played a very positive role in the production of this book.

The study of the neural control of body fluid homeostasis provides rich examples of integrative neurobiology and regulatory physiology. The reader will find many examples in this book of research conducted by leading scientists on signal transduction and sensory afferent mechanisms, molecular genetics, perinatal and adult long-term influences on regulation, central neural integrative circuitry, and autonomic/ neuroendocrine effector systems. In the spirit of integration, many examples are provided demonstrating the interface between body fluid homeostasis with systems controlling cardiovascular function, temperature, energy balance, and behavior. Hormones and neurotransmitters are at the core of the mechanisms that control body fluid balance, and in this volume they are found to be involved with the control of the hypothalamic–neurohypophysial axis, neuroplasticity, thirst, and sodium appetite.

We thank the contributors for their time and effort to produce excellent chapters. It is important to emphasize their patience when asked to revise their chapters. Each author also contributed to the enterprise as blind reviewer for other manuscripts to help bring each of the chapters to its final form.

In just one symposium and in a single volume, it is impossible to cover all of the critical research in a field as large as body fluid homeostasis. However, we trust that omissions in coverage in the text will be compensated for, at least in part, by the extensive number of citations of important research in the reference section of each chapter.

We are confident that readers will find many outstanding examples throughout this volume of how an integrative approach to research applies the latest methods and conceptual frameworks to enhance the study and knowledge on the control of body fluid homeostasis.

* Cannon, W. B. 1929. Organization for physiological homeostasis. Physiol Rev 9:399–31.

† http://200.145.81.21/body_fluid2011/interna_program.php.

‡ http://www.eventus.com.br/isan2011/.

§ Several offices from UNESP sponsored the symposium: FOAr, FUNDUNESP, PROPe, and PROPG.