What is the future of neurology?

What is the future of neurology?

In neurology we are currently trying to identify people, by genetic means, who are at risk from degenerative diseases. With aging occurring in the sense that populations are getting older and older, everyone, if they live long enough, is going to contract some kind of neurologic problem. It may be a stroke, it may be Parkinson's, it may be Alzheimer's disease, it may be motor neuron disease but quite clearly we need to know how those things are happening. Neurology's future is to carry out a lot of research on that. Neurology will be asking why, who, and perhaps when. We want to know we prevent the damage. Neurology talks about MS, strokes, head injury and neural protective agents. But how do you prevent neurons from dying? We have some ideas of the mechanisms. And finally the best way, for repair and regeneration, is stem cells. We may take a while as lot of things have to be done, but we will probably be testing stem cell therapy with some diseases within the next two or three years. Now that doesn't mean it's treatment, it means it's going to be tested, and my feeling are that's our best chance to make some real differences for people who have problems.