Volume 14 Issue 2, February 2018

In 2017, dramatic advances have been made in the treatment of motor neuron diseases. New therapies have been approved for spinal muscular atrophy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and a host of other therapies that are currently under development are showing promising results.

2017 saw the publication of new classifications for epilepsy and seizure types, which emphasize the importance of understanding the underlying disease mechanisms. This aetiology-based approach is already beginning to inform developments in therapies and trial design in the epilepsies.

The past year saw advances in endovascular treatment for acute stroke, speech therapy for aphasia after stroke, and cardiac disease management to prevent stroke. These treatments were characterized by more intensive or more extensive effects than standard care, necessitating thoughtful translation of the clinical trial findings into routine clinical practice.

200 years after James Parkinson's An Essay on the Shaking Palsy, 2017 has seen important advances that are driving a shift towards a broader and more holistic understanding of Parkinson disease aetiology and progression. This shift might finally pave the way to entirely novel and more effective prevention and management strategies.

In 2017, extensive research into multiple sclerosis (MS) resulted in improved diagnostic criteria, development of biomarkers that enable monitoring of disease evolution and treatment response over time, and identification of novel genetic markers of disease susceptibility. In addition, 2017 saw the first successful clinical trials of remyelination strategies and treatments for progressive MS.

In clinical trials, outcome measures might determine whether a drug is worthy of further development; in the clinic, they might guide important treatment decisions. Here, Tur and colleagues help clinicians and researchers navigate the maze of options for clinical, neuroimaging, patient-reported and composite outcome measures in multiple sclerosis.

The leukodystrophies are a group of inherited white matter disorders with diverse genetic backgrounds and substantial phenotypic variability. This Review provides a comprehensive overview of the leukodystrophies that present in adulthood, focusing on conditions for which treatments are available.

In the past few years, novel insights into the links between the molecular and clinicopathological features of meningiomas have provided new opportunities for treatment options. Here, Matthias Preusser and colleagues discuss current progress and future prospects in the development of molecularly driven diagnosis and therapy for meningiomas.

Sadnicka and colleagues present task-specific dystonia in the context of motor skill learning in health. Their framework integrates established risk factors for task-specific dystonia with mechanisms of motor skill learning, to indicate how disrupted neural representations of motor skills might arise.