Clin Neuropathol
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The history of Italian Neuropathology begins in the XIX century with Lombroso with his studies of criminal and prostitutes, inspired by the positivism of the era, and on the brain of epileptic patients. It reached its peak at the beginning of XX century with Camillo Golgi, Nobel laureate for his impregnation of neurons and the theory of the diffuse neuronal net. Neuropathology was then cultivated in Asylums and Universities where the main subject of interest were dementias and degenerative diseases, followed by vascular and inflammatory diseases. ⋯ As in other developed countries, Neuropathology with the enlargement of its scientific fields, began to split in sub-disciplines. It remained as a wide spectrum of knowledge, but neuropathologists were obliged to specialize in specific areas of the discipline. The continuous change of the set up of the university studies in the country in the last 20 years did not favor Neuropathology from which, moreover, some new independent disciplines originated.