[Pediatric neurological disorders and genetic counseling]

Genetic counseling provides medical and genetic information of the disease including its natural history, recurrence risk, availability and usefulness of genetic testing, as well as psycho-social support. In the field of pediatric neurology, the majority of genetic counseling seems to be a simple risk estimation of the next child and unrelated to ethical issues. However, in some cases requiring prenatal diagnosis or presymptomatic testing, we have to address serious ethical issues. Genetic counseling should be provided by an educated medical doctor at a suitable genetics clinic. In Japan, we have "Japanese Board of Medical Genetics, Clinical Geneticist" as an education system of clinical genetics for medical doctors. Pediatric neurologists should know the special issues of genetic information and contact with clinical geneticists in selected cases.