Neurological Sciences - Topical collection “Eye movements in general neurology and its subspecialties”

Editor: Prof. David S Zee

The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore

Eye movements are fundamental to the neurological examination. Almost all the brain, including areas associated with the highest levels of cognition – memory, prediction, attention, motivation, and affect-- are influenced by or themselves influence ocular motor behavior. Consequently, for both basic neuroscientists of many ilks, and medical practitioners from many specialties, eye movements become a window to the brain.

Of course computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging have dramatically improved neurological diagnosis, though even today there are areas of clinical neurology in which a targeted bedside examination still outperforms early imaging.

This new emphasis on a ‘proper’ bedside examination of eye movements including the vestibular system is not only applicable to the dizzy patient, but also to other subspecialties of neurology including movement disorders, cognitive disorders and dementia, and all types of genetic, developmental, and degenerative disorders.

Furthermore, with the availability of easy-to-use tools to measure and quantify eye movements we have an ideal biomarker, not only for localization and diagnosis but for documenting the natural history of a disease and for evaluating the effects of treatment. 

Therefore, the Topical collection “Eye movements in general neurology and its subspecialties (this opens in a new tab)” published in Neurological Sciences strives to

• collect contributions in the areas of neuro-otology and neuro-ophthalmology both for their own sake and for their relevance to so many subspecialties of modern-day neurology;
• update our knowledge of the pathophysiology of nystagmus and eye movement disorders, both for basic scientists and clinicians;
• describe the many ways eye movements can be used as biomarkers for evaluating the natural history of neurological diseases and documenting the effects of treatments of all types;

• show how the examination of eye movements, both by simple clinical inspection, and using the latest technological advances, can be applied across the many platforms in which patients are seen, from the emergency department to the remote telemedicine visit.

We encourage authors to submit original research articles and review articles, as well as interesting case reports in in the format of letters to the editor.

Please note that a Topical Collection is a continuous section of the journal. It receives and collects papers invited or unsolicited relating to a particular subject or concept. A Topical Collection is not a Special Issue or a Supplement to the journal. The manuscripts are not submitted at the same time, and they do not appear in a single issue of the journal. A Topical Collection functions both as a call for papers on a specific topic and as an index of the articles that have been submitted, peer-reviewed, accepted and published in the journal on that subject.

For any submission related queries, you can contact Patrizia Bianchi, Springer Nature Editor (patrizia.bianchi@springer.com).