The pathophysiological mechanisms underlying normal aging and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) have yet to be fully established. A major challenge of modern neuroscience is to identify the neuronal circuits which underlie specific cognitive functions; this objective is complicated as they undergo significant changes throughout the human lifespan and are profoundly affected by neurodegeneration in dementia. Successful early detection of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD demands the identification of biomarkers capable of distinguishing individuals with prodromal from healthy aging adults. It would also be critical to accurately identify MCI patients from individuals likely to convert to AD, in order to provide more effective treatments which may modify the course of the disorder. As altered functional connectivity may precede structural changes, it is important to implement techniques that are able to measure changes in normal aging brain and to discriminate them from neurodegenerative processes. Moreover, objective methods for the investigation of early functional changes would be useful in the diagnostics of MCI and AD.

This special issue seeks to outline the impact of state-of-the-art of affordable, noninvasive neurophysiological techniques for the measurement of physiological and pathological changes of the aging brain. The scope is to provide innovative information for the assessment of normal aging and dementia, both at a group- and single-subject level. We invite Authors to present original research articles as well as review articles that focus on cutting-edge methodologies aimed at identifying presymptomatic neurodegenerative disorders. We would also encourage manuscripts directed to underline the correlation between neurophysiological findings and neurodegeneration risk factors, including genetic causes, as well as articles providing a comprehensive review of electrophysiological data, which may offer a comprehensive overview of the effects of aging on brain function in space and time. The topics to be covered include, but are not limited to:

• Low-density EEG and High-density EEG
• Event-related potential (ERP)
• Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
• Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
• Multimodal imaging and advanced analysis techniques
• Neurophysiological techniques in evaluating novel therapeutic approaches to modulate AD pathology and cognitive impairment
• Sleep neurophysiology and dementia

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijad/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: