Mediators of Inflammation in Neurological Disorders

Call for Papers

Inflammatory neurological disorders represent one of the last challenging frontiers in medicine. Despite varying initial insults, including trauma, infection, hemorrhage, ischemia, and autoimmunity, the converging paths of neuroinflammation follow a similar pathophysiology in multiple neurological disorders. The exacerbated inflammatory response in the central nervous system (CNS) ultimately leads to host-mediated delayed insults to the brain and spinal cord. However, neuroinflammation has also been recognized to be critical for repair mechanisms of the injured CNS. Until present, the adverse outcomes from secondary insults in neurological inflammatory disorders remain largely nonpreventable. Despite vast research in the field, no specific causative treatment has been developed to ameliorate these neuroinflammatory conditions, and strategies to prevent the extent neuropathology have largely failed in translation from the “bench to beside.”

This special issue will be focused on review articles and original research articles which explore the pathophysiology and potential new therapeutic approaches in humans and in experimental animal models of inflammatory neurological disorders. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Advances in understanding the pathophysiology of neurological inflammatory disorders, and the impact of specific inflammatory mediators contributing to the pathophysiology of secondary brain damage
• Neurological conditions of interest include, but are not limited to: traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, meningitis, viral encephalitis, including HIV, psychiatric disorders, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and other autoimmune-mediated CNS disorders
• Development and testing of new therapeutic approaches targeted at inflammatory mediators in the CNS
• New insights into the role of inflammatory mediators as diagnostic tests for determining the severity and prognosis in neurological disease
• Characterization of new animal models mimicking neuroinflammatory disorders in humans
• Advances in clinical trials aimed at targeting inflammatory mediators and supporting neuroreparative mechanisms in the brain and spinal cord

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/pri/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable:

Lead Guest Editor

• Philip F. Stahel, Denver Health Medical Center, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, USA

Guest Editors

• Todd Vanderheiden, Denver Health Medical Center, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, USA
• Wade R. Smith, Swedish Medical Center, Englewood, CO, USA
• Cristina Morganti-Kossmann, National Trauma Research Institute, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia