The goal of this application is to plan, execute and publish the proceedings of a 3-day international symposium on new developments in the area of myoclonus and paroxysmal dyskinesias. The meeting will be open to the public and will be advertised at major neurology meetings and journals. It has been 15 years since the last comprehensive meeting on myoclonus, and to our knowledge no open meeting has focused attention on the paroxysmal dyskinesias. There have been tremendous advances in understanding the etiology and mechanisms of these disorders. By presenting recent developments in both fields together, we hope to illustrate the underlying similarities between the two areas. The symposium will include an international roster of 35 invited speakers who will give plenary talks, and approximately 25 poster presentations chosen by the organizing committee on the basis of submitted abstracts. It will occur over 3 days and be divided into 6 half-day sessions, including: 1) Clinical features of myoclonic syndromes; 2) Neurophysiology of myoclonus; 3) Genetics of myoclonus; 4) Neuropharmacology and animal models of myoclonus; 5) Paroxysmal dyskinesias and their relationship to epilepsy; 6) The genetics of paroxysmal disorders. During each day's lunch break, participants will briefly present their posters, reviewing the latest developments in these fields. Each invited speaker will be required to submit a brief abstract and a full-length chapter summarizing their presentation. Poster presenters will submit a brief abstract. The collected abstracts will be published in the journal Movement Disorders. The chapters will be published in full in a single volume, probably in the Advances in Neurology series. Many of the speakers may present videotapes of animal models or patients. These will be edited and accompany the single volume in CD-ROM format.
