Epidemiological studies, modern clinical, neuroimaging, neuropsychological, molecular biological, and genetic studies have considerably enhanced our knowledge about ageing processes of the human brain, its sequelae, diagnostic, and therapeutic possibilities and limits. In addition to Alzheimer's disease and other degenerative dementias, the impact of cerebrovascular lesions and their risk factors in the pathogenesis of cognitive disorders of the aged are increasingly acknowledged, and the recognition of mild cognitive impairment as a frequent initial stage of developing dementia is becoming...

More than 150 years have passed since involvement of the nervous system in leukemia was first reported by BURNS, while the possibility of the primary brain tumor derived from the lymphoreticular tissue was recognized much later. BAILEY in 1929 described such neoplasms under the term perithelial sarcoma. Later these tumors of the nervous system have been variously designated as "Perivascular of perithelial sarcomas, reticulum cell sarcomas or microgliomas," as controversy has evolved and still exists on the definition of this group of neoplasms and on the nature of their cells of origin. Much...

The scientific work of Walther Birkmayer is grounded on his ability to turn what was often a mass of clinical details into the basis for a hypothesis for a new therapeutic approach toward solving the problems of a patient's illness. Birkmayer first became known when, during the Second World War, he built up a clinic for brain injuries in Vienna, in which over 3000 patients were treated. The study of changes in the autonomic functions of the nervous system in these patients as well as the problems of rehabilitation were published in a monograph, "Hirn- verletzungen". Consequently, this was his...