Some neurologists think our speciality ends at the foramen magnum, but most acknowledge that we should be engaged with disorders of the spinal cord, peripheral nervous system and even the muscles (in any event if we don’t, who will?). So no excuses for the peripheral flavour of the review articles in this issue.

There is an obvious connection between the article from California (page 74) reminding us that the diagnosis of motor neuron disease/ALS is not necessarily an easy, one-off event and that sometimes time is needed to make sure, and another article from the US, by Steven Lundberg, who …