Role of the Mediterranean Diet in the Brain and Neurodegenerative Diseases

Tahira Farooqui has published extensively on drug receptor interactions, biogenic amines in vertebrate and invertebrate nervous systems, biogenic amines mediated signaling, neural plasticity, as well as neuromoulatory roles of octopamine in the reinorcepathway involved in learning and memory, glycerophospholipid and sphingolipid metabolism and molecular signaling mechanisms in the brain. She is the author of 65 peer-reviewed research articles, one monographs and 8 edited books. She has coauthored a monograph in 2008 Metabolism and Function of Bioactive Ether Lipids in the Brain, 2008, by Springer, and have edited 8 Life Sciences books:1) Biogenic Amines: Pharmacological, Neurochemical, and Molecular Aspects in CNS, 2010, NOVA Science Publishers; 2) Phytochemicals and Human Health: Pharmacological and Molecular Aspects, 2011, NOVA Science Publishers; 3) Molecular Aspects of Neurodegeneration and Neuroprotection, 2011, Bentham Science Publishers; 4) Oxidative Stress in Vertebrates and Invertebrates: Molecular Aspects of Oxidative Stress on Cell Signaling, 2012, John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 5) Beneficial effects of propolis on human health and chronic diseases. Vol I, 2012, NOVA Science Publishers, Hauppage, New York; 6) Tahira Farooqui and Akhlaq A. Farooqui, Beneficial effects of propolis on human health and chronic diseases. Vol II, 2012, NOVA Science Publishers, Hauppage, New York; 7) Metabolic Syndrome and Neurological Disorders, 2013, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; and 8) Diet and Exercise in Cognitive Function and Neurological Diseases, 2015, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Akhlaq A. Farooqui is a leader in the field of signal transduction processes, lipid mediators, phospholipases, glutamate neurotoxicity, and neurological disorders. He is a research scientist in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry at The Ohio State University. He has published cutting edge research on the role of phospholipases A2 in signal transduction processes, generation and identification of lipid mediators during neurodegeneration by lipidomics. He has studied the involvement of glycerophospholipid, sphingolipid-, and cholesterol-derived lipid mediators in kainic acid neurotoxicity, an experimental model of neurodegenerative diseases. Akhlaq A. Farooqui has discovered the stimulation of plasmalogen- selective phospholipase A2 in brains of patients with Alzheimer disease (AD). Stimulation of this enzyme may not only be responsible for the deficiency of plasmalogens in neural membranes of AD patients, but also be related to the loss of synapse in the AD.