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Neurology residency education is undergoing considerable change in many countries, not least the US and Poland. Ralph F Józefowicz, who has experience with neurology residency training in both countries, compares their respective training programs and argues that the two systems have much to learn from one another during the reform process.
Prematurely born infants are at high risk of brain injury, but although structural and volumetric alterations often persist into later life, there is strong evidence of recovery from cognitive impairments associated with preterm birth. In this Review, Ment and Constable discuss how functional MRI techniques are providing important insights into the adaptive mechanisms of the developing preterm brain, including the engagement of alternative neural networks for language and memory.
Small-fiber neuropathy is a condition that has been underdiagnosed in the past, partly because small nerve fibers cannot be observed using routine neurophysiological tests. Skin biopsy is a safe, minimally invasive tool that can provide important diagnostic information on small nerve fibers, and in this article Lauria and Devigili discuss how this approach is being applied to the diagnosis and monitoring of peripheral neuropathies.
Findings in animal models of Huntington's disease and levodopa-induced dyskinesia indicate that corticostriatal long-term potentiation is abnormally stable in these conditions, causing persistent inhibition of the output nuclei of the basal ganglia, which leads to involuntary movements. In this article, Centonze et al. review evidence that repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation can interfere with the maintenance of corticostriatal long-term potentiation in humans, and might, therefore, be useful as an antidyskinetic treatment.
There is strong evidence that clinical trials with a positive outcome are more likely to be published than are trials with negative results. In this Viewpoint, Richard Johnson and Kay Dickersin explore the reasons for this phenomenon and discuss possible solutions.