Document Download: World Neurology - March/April 2017

Published by Ascend Integrated Media LLC, Kansas, USA

From the editors

Steven L. Lewis, MD, Editor, and Walter Struhal, MD, Co-Editor

Much of this issue revolves around the educational activities of the WFN, starting with the article by Wolfgang Grisold, MD, and Steven Lewis, MD, who provide an update on the many and varied educational activities of the WFN and its partners. This issue also includes enthusiastic and vivid reports from several African neurologists who were recent participants in the Neurology Department Visit programs in Germany, Norway, and Turkey. We would like to add our sincere thanks here to our partner societies who make these WFN/partner society department visits so successful and fruitful for everyone involved.

In his President's Column, WFN President Raad Shakir, MD, provides a powerful proposition about the need for neurologists to work together, including educating the public, other providers, and our governments about the importance of brain health and systems of care delivery to combat brain diseases. We also report on the great honour recently bestowed on Vladimir Hachinski, MD, past president of the World Federation of Neurology, when he received the Prince Mahidol Award in Public Health in Thailand. In his Editor-in-Chief's Update from the Journal of the Neurological Sciences, the official journal of the WFN, John D. England, MD, describes his selected two new "free access" articles selected for the readership, which deal with the interesting issue of cardiac transplantation in Friedreich's Ataxia.

In this issue's history column, Dr. Peter Koehler provides a wonderful synopsis of the many contributions of Charles-Edouard Brown-Séquard (on the bicentennial of his birth), including but certainly not limited to, his eponymous syndrome. Finally, Prof. G. Logroscino and his colleagues from Italy and France report on the recent International Course of Neuroepidemiology, Clinical Neurology, and Research Methods in Low-Income Countries that took place in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Highlights

• An Update on WFN Educational Activities
  

  By Wolfgang Grisold and Steven Lewis
  

  One of the most important and fascinating tasks of the WFN is education. This is an implicit task of a scientific society. Scientific societies have many other tasks, such as promoting science, exchange of knowledge, development, and cooperation. However, their most prudent and important task is to keep preparing for the coming generation and maintaining the present generation with education and knowledge to make them the best in their specialty. This ensures the optimal care for patients with neurological diseases.

• Norwegian Neurological Association Oslo University
  

  By Yohannes Debebe Gelan, MD
  

  I am Yohannes D. Gelan, a final-year neurology resident at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, at the time of the visit. I was very lucky to be selected to the prestigious WFN Department Visit program. I knew ahead of my visit that I would have a once-in-a-lifetime experience in Oslo. I visited the neurology units of Oslo University Hospitals (OUH) with a fellow African neurologist from Senegal named Marième Diop Sene.

• Norway's Riks, Ullevål and National Epilepsy Center
  

  By Marieme Soda Diop-Sene

  From Oct. 22 to Nov. 19, 2016, we had a study trip in Oslo. We arrived on Saturday, Oct. 22, and stayed in the researcher house in Blindern. We spent the first two weeks at Riks Hospital, the third week at Ullevål Hospital, and the last week at the National Epilepsy Center.

• Germany's University Hospital Ulm
  

  By Samy Mohamed Lemine, dadah

  It was my great pleasure to be accepted for a department visit at University Hospital Ulm in Germany. I arrived there on Oct. 3, 2016. I started the next day in the neurology department. Prof. Kasubek, who is the vice head of department, introduced me and showed me around the neurological department.

• Gazi University of Ankara
  

  By Dr. Maouly Fall

  Many thanks to the Turkish Neurological Society and World Federation of Neurology (WFN) for allowing me to perform this visit to the neurology department of the Gazi University of Ankara from Nov. 15 to Dec. 15, 2016.

• World Brain Day 2017 Topic Announced
  

  By Wolfgang Grisold and Mohammed Wasay
  

  World Brain Day 2017 will be centred on stroke and will be jointly prepared and celebrated with the World Stroke Organization. This topic emphasises the importance of stroke and should alert towards prevention and introduce advances in treatment.

• Cambodian Neurologists Participate in Research Methods Course
  

  By Prof. G. Logroscino, Prof. P.M. Preux, Prof. B. Marin, and Dr. F. Boumediene

  An intensive five-day course on research methods, with a focus on practice in low- and medium-income countries, was presented Feb. 7-11 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The course was developed to help Cambodian neurologists establish clinical and population-based research programs on topics of utmost interest, including epilepsy, stroke, dementia, and infectious disease.

• JNS Editor's Update and Selected Articles
  

  By John D. England, Editor-in-Chief

  In our effort to inform readers of important and interesting developments in the journal, the editorial staff has selected two new "free-access" articles for our readership. This issue's selected articles deal with cardiac transplantation in Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA). Although ataxia is the clinical hallmark of FRDA, cardiac disease is the leading cause of death. There is no known cure for the cardiomyopathy of FRDA, and its course is independent of the neurological manifestations. For these reasons, a few patients with FRDA and severe cardiomyopathy have undergone cardiac transplantation. The results have been generally positive.

• Hachinski Receives the Prince Mahidol Award in Public Health
  Vladimir Hachinski, MD, past president of the World Federation of Neurology, received the Prince Mahidol Award in Public Health for "contributions to the treatment of stroke, vascular cognitive impairment, and brain/heart interactions."
• Brown-Séquard Syndrome and Networks
  

  By Peter J. Koehler

  Most neurologists will know about the Brown-Séquard syndrome, comprising an ipsilateral paresis and proprioception disorder with contralateral pain and temperature disturbances, resulting from hemisection of the spinal cord. Charles-Edouard Brown-Séquard wrote his first publication on this finding between 1846 and 1849, starting at age 29.