Sponsored by the Oasi Institute for Research on Mental Retardation and Brain Aging Genetics is a rapidly growing field of medical science, which reveals molecular mechanisms of biological phenomena in health and disease. For this reason, we selected the topic ‘Neurogenetic Disease: From Molecule to Patient’, for the 4th International Symposium on Brain Dysfunction to be held September 1997. Various aspects of neurogenetic diseases: phenotype, pathology, pharmacology, biochemistry, genetics, animal models, and treatment will be discussed. We hope that this international meeting will further promote research in this field in order to understand pathogenesis as well as to develop new therapeutic approaches to genetic diseases affecting the nervous system.