This volume contains the contributions to a course entitled "Sleep and its Pathology", which was organized by the Advanced School of the Italian Neuro­ science Society at the "Alessandro Volta" Center of Scientific Culture (Villa Olmo, Como, Italy, May 9-10,1996). The course was aimed at informing the medical audience about recent deve­ lopments in the field with particular regard to the work of the sleep laboratories of the University of Bologna. The first part of this book presents experimental results dealing with the bio­ chemical specificity of hypothalamic sleep mechanisms, cerebral metabolism during sleep and the sleep-dependent systemic cardiovascular adjustments in relation to blood perfusion and thermal homeostasis of the brain. The second part covers pathophysiological aspects of human sleep, namely the circadian rhythm of body core temperature in neurodegenerative diseases, the descriptive epidemiology of excessive daytime sleepiness, the disorders of breathing and motor control in sleep and the syndrome of nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsy. The Editors hope that the book may be useful not only to specifically interested rea­ ders, but also to general practitioners. The Editors wish to express special thanks to Professor Eugenio E. Muller for his suggestion to collect the lectures in book-form. The Editors thank the authors for their contributions to the course and to this publication and express their appreciation to Springer-Verlag for helping make this monography possible.