This prologue to a symposium of research studies on motor mechanisms is a general commentary by a clinical neurologist. The vast extent and intricacy of modern basic neurological scientific knowledge presents a rather bewildering challenge to reasonable clinical application. In some degree this is being handled by complex and diverse neurological subspecialization. It is recalled that many past advances in the knowledge of neurological disease were achieved by a series of alternating and supporting bedside and laboratory observations and studies.

The varied disorders of movement and muscle tone which signal disordered motor mechanisms will continue to demand explanation and will keep the human model in a leading research position. Clinical and laboratory research leading to part discoveries of mechanisms of disease is sometimes productive of dramatic new means of therapy. The story of Wilson’s disease is briefly reviewed in that context. Some recent studies on hypoxic myoclonus are described with the evidence of a serotonin defect and useful related therapy.