Neurodegenerative diseases raise profound questions

People increasingly understand that if they don't die of heart disease or cancer then brain failure is going to get them (p 1465). Neurological and psychiatric disorders account for only 1.4% of deaths but 28% of years lived with a disability (p 1469). As populations age the burden of illness caused by neurodegenerative illness will increase. That's one reason why we have devoted this issue to neurodegenerative disease (and our sister journal Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry is doing the same with its June issue), but another is that it's a …