Botulinum Neurotoxins and Nervous System: Future Challenges for Novel Indications

Special Issue Information: Botulinum toxins (BoNTs) are a true wonder of nature. Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hide, they have a double "personality" that makes them unique among toxins of bacterial origin. On the one hand, BoNTs are key components of several widely-used drugs, approved for a variety of clinical conditions, difficult to treat with other medicine. On the other hand, BoNTs are the causal agent of botulism and, with its highest toxicity among natural products, are one of the most dangerous bioterrorism agents. Both animal and clinical studies have extensively investigated the therapeutics effects for BoNTs, evidencing a variety of apparently different mechanisms which have in common the block of the cholinergic transmission at the neuromuscular junction. This discovery gave an extraordinary consensus to the clinical use of BoNTs in human pathologies characterized by excessive muscle contractions, i.e., the hypercholinergic dysfunctions going from torticollis, blepharospasms, dystonias, and so on. In recent years, a number of studies have provided evidence for the efficacy of BoNTs in alleviating human pain, including pain disorders associated with migraine. The list of human disorders in which treatments with BoNTs have produced, or are expected to produce, favorable results is long and continuously growing. This Special Issue "Botulinum Neurotoxins in Nervous System: Future Challenges for Novel Indications" is particularly devoted to collecting the most recent research on the effects of BoNTs in all cases where the expected therapeutic action is not attributable only to the its canonical mechanism, but also to the interaction of the toxins with other structures, including peripheral nerves, spinal cord, central neurons, non-neural cells, and so on. Both review and research articles are welcome, not only on animal studies, but also on clinical reports. The ambitious purpose of this Special Issue is to provide an up-to-date picture of the state-of-the-art on the possible development of novel BoNT applications for future therapeutic indications.