• neurodegenerative diseases
• Parkinson's disease
• excitotoxicity
• mitochondrial dysfunction

Neurodegenerative diseases are important. Certainly, this is the case if one uses the criterion that one prime minister of the UK is said to have used to decide the nation's medical research priorities. A list of topics submitted was said to have been drawn up and reviewed with the following question: “How much do we spend because of this disease in a year?” If the amount was substantial, then applications in this area were favoured, and if the answer was very little, then the opposite applied.

The quality of the proposed science in an application was thought of less importance. The story is probably untrue, but it makes the point about the growing economic impact such diseases pose as we progress to an increasingly elderly society. If we survive everything else, we have one of two things to look forward to, either Alzheimer's …