The "Handbook of Clinical Neurology" (Series Editors: Michael J. Aminoff, Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, USA; FranAois Boller, Bethesda, USA; Dick F. Swaab, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Amsterdam, the Netherlands)has an international reputation as the ultimate reference tool for neurologists involved in clinical research and for neuroscience research workers. It offers comprehensive coverage of the whole field of neurology edited and written by an international list of contributors including the leading workers in the field. This volume is particularly for all those interested in the fundamental aspects of muscle disease or involved with care of patients with these disorders. However, a further separate volume in the Handbook of Clinical Neurology series will be devoted to the muscular dystrophies. The contents include coverage of the latest developments in the subject such as the regulatory nuclear and mitochondrial genetic mechanisms, the proteins involved in muscle function and their remarkable interactions, the nature and function of ion channels and ionic activity, and the complexity of inflammatory cascades that has led to a wider appreciation of the nature of muscle diseases and suggests new approaches for their management. Clinically there has been the recognition and description of new entities and improved classifications of groups of disorders such as the distal myopathies, and the discovery of disease-causing mutation for many of the muscular dystrophies and hereditary myopathies.