[Organization and development of neurochemical research in the Dnepr area (the 60-80s)]

The development of neurochemical investigations at the Institute of Biochemistry of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine initiated by Academician A. V. Palladin, has impelled specialists in some regions of the country to start research in this trend. The Department of Biophysics and Biochemistry of Dniepropetrovsk State University founded and headed by Professor O. D. Reva became one of such centres in the Dnieper area. The chief developments of scientific-research inventions were devoted to radiational neurochemistry, O. D. Reva should be accounted as a pioneer of the study of chemical composition and metabolism in functional and morphologically logically different sites of cats spinal cord lumbar enlargement. Thus, the significant statement, proposed by A. V. Palladin, was confirmed about the presence of biochemical differentiation in cerebrum besides the morphological and functional ones. While analysing the test data concerning the biochemical and biophysical indices of roentgen irradiation of cats in different terms and conditions an original scheme of radiation-biophysical and radiation-biochemical injury of spinal cord was proposed. Some tissue proteinases, as well as some neurospecific proteins in the norm and under the gamma-irradiation were selected and assayed. An immunoelectrophoretic technique for estimating glyolic fibrilar acid protein and cellular adhesion (N-CAM) in blood and surrounding fluid, as well as in human brain tumour was developed and a method of early prenatal diagnosis of embryo developmental disorders was proposed in order to prevent the birth of the underdeveloped infants.