The studying and teaching of behavioral neurology remain in their infancy. As the arena for studying how the brain subserves cognition, emotion and consciousness, behavioral neurology straddles the boundaries of numerous, more established disciplines-extending from the most fundamental explorations of molecular biology to the broadest questions of philosophy. In behavioral neurology, the area of neural dysfunction as well as the pathogenesis must be determined. There are cases in which a more thorough mental status examination must be performed. These are practically the cases with known or suspected brain lesions and acute psychiatric disorders.