NEUROTROPHIC FACTORS - PAST AND FUTURE

For several decades, neurotrophic factors have been confined within th e Geld of basic neuroscience and their suspected importance for human neurological diseases rested on ideas and hypothesis rather than on fa cts. More recently, the progress in molecular biology techniques have allowed the production of high amounts of recombinant neurotrophic fac tors and the construction of animal models of neurodegenerative diseas es. The picture is currently changing up to the point that clinical tr ials are now in progress. Certainly some of them have given or will gi ve disappointing results but we anticipate that major progress in the management of neurological disorders will result, if not from the use of neurotrophic factors themselves, at least from treatments based upo n the concepts and data generated within this field of basic neuroscie nce.