Signal transduction in neuronal death

Apoptosis in the nervous system is a necessary event during the development of the nervous system and is also present after genotoxic events, be they chronic as in aging or more acute after trauma and ischemia. Apoptotic events reflect an interplay between intrinsic signaling events that rely on cytokines, neurotransmitters, and growth factors and responses to extrinsic events that increase levels of radical oxygen species. Both intrinsically and extrinsically driven signal-transduction pathways act via transcription factors that regulate the coordinated timely expression of stress-response genes as part of a decision-making process that can commit cells to apoptosis or survival. Here we discuss the role of two transcription factors that participate in apoptosis n the nervous system: the activator protein AP-1 and nuclear factor κB.