Reviews & Analysis

The recently revised 5th edition of the WHO classification of brain tumours 'blue book' will have a major impact in stratifying diagnosis and treatment. However, low-grade neuroepithelial tumours (LEATs), which present with early-onset focal epilepsy, lack integrated clinicopathological and molecular genetic diagnostic tools. The Neuropathology Task Force of the International League against Epilepsy will critically discuss this issue, as well as offer perspectives on how to decipher and validate clinically meaningful LEAT entities using the current WHO approach.

Drawing on data from social network studies, Dhand and colleagues suggest that focusing on a patient's personal network can help identify individuals at risk of poor health outcomes. The authors provide an overview of the terminology used in social network studies, discuss social network structures that put patients at risk, and suggest how social network research might be applied in the neurology clinic.

Participants in collision sports show a high incidence of concussion and can have deleterious long-term consequences for brain function. Here, Rebekah Mannix and colleagues discuss the benefits and risks associated with the practice of contact sports and examine how this balance affects policies regarding the practice of collision sports.

Suspected non-Alzheimer disease pathophysiology (SNAP) is a biomarker-based concept that applies to individuals with normal levels of amyloid-β biomarkers in the brain, but in whom biomarkers of neurodegeneration are abnormal. Clinically normal and mildly impaired individuals with SNAP are at increased risk of poor clinical and cognitive outcomes. In this Perspectives article, Clifford Jack and colleagues describe the available data on SNAP and address topical controversies in the field.