This month, cerebral amyloid angiopathy. David Werring (Stroke Research Group, UCL Institute of Neurology and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery) discusses the importance of detecting it, especially as he feels it is under-recognised by physicians. What impact does a healthy lifestyle have on mortality following stroke? Amytis Towfighi (Division of Stroke and Critical Care, Department of Neurology, University of Southern California) tells us what her research found. And lastly, another dig into the JNNP archives. Mark Hallett (chief of the Human Motor Control Section at the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NIH) has looked back on his early research on patterns of motor control for the third of our impact commentaries. He talks about how this opened a window onto movement disorder pathophysiology. See also: Sporadic cerebral amyloid angiopathy revisited: recent insights into pathophysiology and clinical spectrum Impact of a healthy lifestyle on all-cause and cardiovascular mortality after stroke in the USA EMG analysis of stereotyped voluntary movements in man