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Arch Neurol. 2000;57:1261.

Antioxidants
Delanty and Dichter (SEE ARTICLE) provide a highly relevant and practical review of antioxidants and their potential benefits to treat neurologic disorders. What works, what doesn't, and why are presented clearly and candidly.

Neuronal Suicide
Friedlander (SEE ARTICLE) describes the important role of caspase 1 as an important protease involved in the genetic program of cell death in specific neurologic disorders, the mode of action, and potential effective therapies to be developed.

Ultrasound Findings in Multiple Sclerosis
Berg and colleagues (SEE ARTICLE) have measured ventricular width with ultrasound and correlate it with disability and disease progression in patients with multiple sclerosis. It is an easy surrogate marker for serial follow-up examinations, and its clinical utility is described. Donald Paty (SEE ARTICLE) provides an editorial comment.

Complex Causes of Poststroke Dementia
Pohjasvaara and colleagues (SEE ARTICLE) from Finland have identified multiple reasons for poststroke dementia, including specific infarct features, infarct location, white matter lesions, temporal lobe atrophy, and other host factors. Even vascular-based dementia represents complex interacting issues.

Blood Pressure Rhythmicity and White Matter Lesions
Sander and colleagues (SEE ARTICLE) from Germany provide convincing evidence that systolic circadian blood pressure variation and, in particular, systolic nighttime blood pressure increase are involved in the pathogenesis of white matter lesions. It is a new and interesting observation with clear therapeutic implications.

Diffusion-Weighted MRI and Acute Stroke
Lansberg and colleagues (SEE ARTICLE) have used diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging and find that it improves the accuracy of identifying acute ischemic brain lesions in stroke patients scanned within 48 hours of symptom onset. Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides increased sensitivity and specificity when identifying acute ischemic lesions.

Multiple Sclerosis Functional Composite
Miller and colleagues (SEE ARTICLE) have developed the Multiple Sclerosis Functional Composite (MSFC) as a new clinical outcome measure for clinical trials. It is a highly sensitive and reproducible measurement of patient quality of life and will be of great value as a clinical outcome measure.

Dystonia-Predominant Huntington Disease
Louis and colleagues (SEE ARTICLE) of the Neurological Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, describe adult-onset Huntington disease (HD) cases with predominant dystonia and paucity of chorea. A younger age of onset was associated with a more severe dystonia, bradykinesia, and eye movement abnormalities relative to chorea. Adult-onset HD has a motor phenotype that forms a continuum with respect to age of onset.

Predicting Postoperative Epilepsy by PET Scanning
Dupont and colleagues (SEE ARTICLE) from France studied patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) using positron emission tomography with ¹⁸fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG-PET) as a means of predicting their subsequent postoperative outcome. The FDG-PET analysis for specific temporal lobe regions reliably predicted the 2-year prognosis after surgery in these patients with MTLE. Their findings are important and need to be extended, as their potential impact on clinical and surgical decisions is clear.