Abstract
The new textbook Animal Models of Movement Disorders, edited by Mark LeDoux, provides a comprehensive examination of clinical and experimental movement disorders of significant interest to practicing neurologists and researchers alike. Although not a pathology textbook, the veterinary pathologist working in research or drug discovery will find this text very helpful as it brings together a wide variety of information on many of the disorders described.
The textbook is well organized and contains approximately 14 sections. The first section provides a series of chapters addressing introductory material on human movement disorders and the techniques used in generation of animal models to research these complex and often seriously debilitating conditions. Subsequent sections focus either on a specific disorder (e.g. Parkinson Disease or Huntington Disease) or a general group of disorders (e.g. Tremors or Ataxias). In general, each section begins with an overview chapter describing the condition in humans and relevant neurophysiologic, diagnostic, pathologic, and associated information. Subsequent chapters describe specific animal models relating to the topic of the particular section.
A special feature of this textbook is the enclosed DVD that contains over 170 video clips depicting clinical scenes of movement disorders from affected patients as well as footage from experimental animal models. These video clips augment appreciation of the clinical conditions and animal models described in the text. Videos are of reasonable quality and are searchable on the DVD with a search engine that locates appropriate video clips based on search terms entered. The DVD adds to the value of the textbook and provides the reader a visual appreciation of the clinical and experimental conditions addressed.
The text is well written and very readable. The book tends to rely heavily on written text, tables, and supporting black and white diagrams. There are no color illustrations in the book and occasional black and white photographs. Color images of a few of the photographs can be found on the DVD. Most chapters contain a long list of current references and the book is extensively indexed.
Overall, this new textbook provides a comprehensive treatment of animal models used to study human movement disorders and should serve the neurologist, researcher, and other interested scientists very well.