Neurotrophic factor receptors: just like other growth factor and cytokine receptors?

As the actions of neurotrophic factors appear so strikingly different from those of growth factors and cytokines operating elsewhere in the body, it was long thought that neurotrophic factors might in some way be fundamentally different from traditional growth factors and cytokines. Recent advances in the understanding of the structure of the receptors for neurotrophic factors reveals them to be much more like the receptors used by other cytokines and growth factors than was perhaps first anticipated. These findings suggest that neurotrophic factors display distinctive actions not because they utilize novel receptor systems, but rather because they activate these receptors in neurons.