regions [38] and are suggested to play an important role in neurological disorders [39, 40]. For example, in brain injury, the activity of neutral sphingomyelinase is induced and the ceramide level accumulates in astrocytes after cerebral ischemia [39]. Another study showed that the activity of neutral ceramidase (an enzyme that cleaves fatty acid from ceramide) was increased in Alzheimer’s disease brain fractions [41]. In addition, treating neuronal cultures with amyloid beta peptide has been shown to elevate neutral sphingomyelinase and ceramide activities [41, 42].
