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A critical review of the literature concerning PNS involvement in HIV infection was carried out. This complication was detected a short time ago (1982) and therefore a common classification is not yet available. The authors, through an analysis of the cases reported in literature, suggest a nosographic classification of this pathology.

The Authors introduce some questions concerning cognitive impairment in Parkinsonian patients and they focus the attention on 'bradyphrenia'. They briefly discuss the methodological difficulties in studying this kind of disturbances in Parkinson's disease (PD) and the approach to this problem with the help of the Event-Related Potentials or ERPs. Finally, they review literature and their data on Contingent Negative Variation (CNV) and P300 in PD and conclude that interesting and useful informations can be obtained by means of the electrophysiological methods.

Describing a case of acute ischemic stroke in the middle cerebral territory, seen on CT scan, the Authors discuss the TCD results.

A variety of drugs have been reported to cause peripheral nerve dysfunction. A review on this topic is reported concerning a wide number of drugs commonly employed in the clinical practice. In the analysis of the possible neurotoxicity of the various drugs the following criteria were into account: typical clinical features, full or partial recovery after treatment suspension, possibility to reproduce clinical and morphological peripheral system alterations in experimental animal models.

The AA, study the case of patient presenting three relapses of severe herpetic encephalitic. These episodes were studied by TAC, RNM and EEG. The diagnostic and prognostic role of these examinations are stressed in discussion.

Two cases of subcortical arteriosclerotic encephalopathy (Binswanger's disease) are reported. The two patients lacked a clinical history of hypertension, relevant pathogenetic factor in the development of the small and medium size cerebral arteries atherosclerosis, which is the main pathologic finding of the disease. The two subjects clinically showed a marked intellectual deterioration, together with mood depression and focal neurological signs, that were an expression of the multifocal neurologic involvement. In both cases CT scans evidentiated a mainly periventricular leucoencephalopathy associated, in the first patient, with small multiple ischemic lesions and, in the second, with a unique hypodense area in the centrum semiovale. A review of the literature on the subjects is proposed, together with an attempt of pathogenetic interpretation of our two cases.

Three clinical cases of essential blepharospasm are discussed. On the basis of both therapeutical results and a review of the literature, pathogenetic hypothesis concerning such pathology are reexamined.

Two cases of mitochondrial myopathy are described. An electrophysiological study was also accomplished to investigate the concomitant involvement of the central nervous system (CNS), by means of evoked potentials (EP). The EPs in fact can reveal minimal signs of CNS lesions also when muscular damage is the only clinical evidence.

A group of 30 patients classified on clinical grounds as having definite (N = 16) or probable MS (N = 14) according to McAlpine's criteria, has been studied using multimodal recordings of evoked potentials (visual, auditory, and somatosensory) and examination of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for oligoclonal bands and Link's Index. Evoked potentials examination proved extremely sensitive in discovering asymptomatic lesions of the central nervous system. CSF data, in particular the presence of oligoclonal bands, had a high sensitivity for MS. According to these electrophysiologic and immunologic results, we have reclassified our patients in conformity with the diagnostic criteria proposed by Bartel. The combination of electrophysiological and CSF data, together with common clinical criteria, led to greater diagnostic accuracy, making it possible to reclassify most patients previously considered to have probable MS as having definite MS.

The Authors have studied 120 cases of Bell's palsy, who underwent regular controls along 360 days from the beginning of the disease. The study has been carried out by means of two different parameters of evaluation, a clinical and electrophysiological one, which allowed us to obtain very interesting results, especially as regards the prognostic aspect.