The field of neuroprotection is expanding rapidly. The biology of central nervous system tumors is explored at a very fast pace. On the other hand, the protection of the nervous system against mechanism-inducing degenerative disorders becomes also as crucial as the treatment of such disorders. For example, a ketogenic diet can alleviate demyelination of mouse hippocampal neurons and could play a role in protection against demyelinating diseases like multiple sclerosis. It is time to collect our results about neuroprotective treatment regimens, which are established or show promising results. Clinical, as well as laboratory data should be presented to put the pieces of the puzzle together, to create a comprehensive image of what is known nowadays about neuroprotective treatments. Apart from neuroprotection, the study of factors that create neural degeneration or induce tumorigenesis, like the genetic profile of a patient, is of high interest in diagnosing diseases of the nervous system in their early stage. Noxious factors can be avoided to prevent their devastating effects on neurons. The environment around the neurons consisting of the collagen matrix etc. has also to be better understood to interrupt possible pathological processes. Glycobiology gave us some insight into the way cell migration and differentiation are controlled. The removal of polysialic acid i.e. from neuroblastoma cells decreased their migration and induced re-differentiation of these cells. Glioblastomas i.e. are significantly over-expressing polysialic acid and their removal from the cell surface could be a promising treatment approach.

With the present special issue, we try to bring together the knowledge in the field of neuroprotective treatments from different areas like genetics, dietary supplements, glycobiology, hormonal factors, as well as neurotrophic factors to name a few. This will allow us to get an image of neuroprotection, by gathering the knowledge of different fields in one book.

We invite investigators of these fields to contribute with original or review articles to illuminate the dark path of neuronal pathology.

Keywords: neuronal degeneration; demyelinating diseases; gliomas; neuroprotective factors