[Neurological investigation in Spain. Present and future]

To analyze the situation of neurological research in relationship to the biomedical and neuroscience research in Spain. To discuss alternatives of neurology research for the future.

Author review. Review of neurology research bibliography by means of three quantitative bibliometric indexes of neurological publications in Medline (research in neurology, neurology evidence-based medicine publications, and clinical trials); and review of the database of grants funded by the FIS (Health Research Fund) in 1989 and in the 1994-2000 period.

Spain is in a middle position in country biomedical publication ranking in Europe, although the Spanish expenditure from GNP granted to research is lower than the mean situation among EU countries. Investigation in neurosciences stands out in biomedical research in Spain, however the bibliometric indexes analyzed and the study performed of the database of the FIS are not favorable for Spanish Neurology. This study shows that, for the 1994-2000 period, the neurologists only performed 32.1% of the projects funded in clinical research, 6% in neurosciences; 66.7% in epidemiology; and 4.3% in management-public health.

The expenditure for biomedical research should be increased in Spain. Furthermore, clinical research and neurological clinical management research should be intensified. One of the better strategies to achieve this objective is to obtain medical part-time schedules for patient oriented research in hospitals. To solve this situation and to set up communication networks among basic neuro-scientific, clinicians and epidemiologists is one of the major challenges of the current neurological research in Spain.