The White Book on Global World Neurology

The book is a long-needed summary of neurological structures and practice worldwide. It is intended to serve as a compendial summary of neurology and is based on the inputs of the World Federation of Neurology (WFN) regions, developments of the World health Organization (WHO), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of UNECOSOC and relations with other medical specialties.

The book describes the historic development of neurology and the rapid growth in the past decades, based on science and research and implementation of structures. Based on the World Bank classification the regions of the world are divided according to income (High income, Low income, Upper and Lower Middle income), or more recently in the North South Divide.

Core disciplines for which the book is of interest are neurology, neuropathology, neurophysiology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, internal medicine, (neuro) radiology, (neuropsychology). And, patient organisations, nursing, carers, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy can benefit from it.

Chapters 4, 5, and 6 are available as open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO License via link.springer.com.

Prof. Wolfgang Grisold, FAAN, is a specialist in neurology and psychiatry. His special interests are general neurology, neuromuscular diseases, neurooncology, palliative care and education. His scientific focus is the effect of cancer on the peripheral nervous system.

Other topics are placebo/nocebo, advocacy in neurology, migrants and refugees and history.

He participates in an ethics committee of the city of Vienna. His scientific affiliation is the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute. He also works in a private office in Vienna equipped with electrophysiology and ultrasound.

He has edited and published 16 books and his pubmed count is 303.

From 2000 to 2002, he was the founding president of the Austrian Society of Neurology (OEGN). He is a past president of the UEMS/EBN section and board or Neurology and of the European Association of neurooncology (EANO).

He has been a trustee of the World Federation of neurology since 2009, its secretary general from 2014 until 2021, and is the current WFN president.

Prof. Riadh Gouider has been Professor of Neurology and Head of the Neurology Department at Razi University Hospital since 2002. He also leads the Alzheimer's Center (since 2010), the Clinical Investigation Center “Neurosciences and Mental Health” (since 2016), and the Multiple Sclerosis Center (since 2018).

Since 2022, he has served as Co-Chair of the WFN Education Committee, and in 2024, he joined the WFN-AAN Global Advocacy Leadership Program (GALP) Steering Committee.

He has received multiple awards from international societies, including the AAN Foreign Scholarship Award (1994), the EAN Special Service Award (2018), and the PAUNS Award at the World Congress of Neurology (Dubai, 2019).

He has authored or co-authored more than 260 original papers and book chapters.

Prof. Steven Lewis is a graduate of Yale University, where he received his BA in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. He received his medical education at the Stanford University School of Medicine and performed his neurology residency at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Lewis is the current Secretary-General of the World Federation of Neurology (WFN) and a WFN Trustee since 2014. He is Chair of the WFN Education Committee and the Editor of World Neurology, the official newsletter of the WFN.

Dr. Lewis is Physician-in-Chief and Endowed Chair of Neurology of the Lehigh Valley Fleming Neuroscience Institute in Pennsylvania, USA, Adjunct Professor of Neurology at Thomas Jefferson University, and the Regional Chief for the Lehigh Valley for the Vickie and Jack Farber Institute for Neuroscience of Jefferson Health.

Dr. Lewis is immediate Past-Director and Past Chair of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and a past Chair of the Neurology Residency Review Committee of the U.S. Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

He is the author or editor of multiple textbooks of neurology. His main clinical interests are neurologic education, the neurology of systemic disease, and transient global amnesia.

Prof. Alla Guekht is Director of the Moscow Research and Clinical Center for Neuropsychiatry of the Moscow Healthcare Department and Professor of Neurology in the Russian National Research Medical University. Her main research interests are: epilepsy, cerebrovascular diseases, post-COVID condition. She is the author of over 370 peer reviewed papers and chapters.

She is the Editorial Board member of: Epilepsia, Epileptic Disorders, European Journal of Neurology, Neurological Sciences (associate editor), Journal of Neurological Sciences, Acta Neurologica Scandinavica, European Journal of Stroke, Korsakov Journal of Neurology and Psychiatry (past and present).

Professor Guekht received the Bruce S. Schoenberg International Award in Neuroepidemiology from the American Academy of Neurology, European Educational Award on Epileptology and the Ambassador for Epilepsy Award from the International League against Epilepsy and the International Bureau for Epilepsy.