Electronic communication is acquiring a central position in information and data exchange in all field of sciences.
A great amount of this traffic flows through the so called Mailing Lists (ML).
An exploration on the WEB has permitted us to recognize approximately 250 ML on Neurosciences (including in this word Neurology, Psichology and Psychiatry).
At the present only one professional list is specifically devoted to Clinical Neurophysiology (Clin_Neurophysiol listserv@listserv.umu.se).
Some neurological lists are used even for discussions in the field of Clinical Neurophysiology; for esample:

An italian experience.

Our "Italian Group of Interest on Internet and Databanks in Clinical Neurophysiology" affiliated to Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology (SINC) was created in 1997. It is mainly constituted by Italian Neurophysiologist who decided to constitute an e-mail discussion group on Clinic Neurophysiology (neurolit@tin.it) joining today about 80 subscribers, nearly all of them italians.

The purposes of this list are primarily focused on the Italian Neurophysiological reality: as a medium for announcements exchange (Congress, Seminars and Courses in Italy and abroad); supporting an electronic Neurophysiological Journal "E-neuro" (the two first issues has been dedicated to updating courses in Clinical Neurophysiology and Internet); serving as the electronic version of SINC bulletin.The creation of this e-list has initially generated a local great interest, with a rapid increase of subscribers. However, the majority of them do not partecipate actively afterwards, the most part of the contents flowing from the moderators to the subscribers.

That is not dissimilar to what happens in the international ML Clin_Neurophysiol: do Neurophysiologist dislike this medium?

Why ML don’t reach a real penetration in our scientific field?

Some reasons may be:

• Electronics ML medium are not appropriate for discussion of neurophysiological contents . The same happens in the majority of groups dedicated to "exact sciences", while discussion are fair rich in phylosophical, psychological and psychiatrical ML. A difficulty in diffusing images and graphics could limit users.
• The numbers of subcribers of such listes is too low to sustain an adeguate flow. In all virtual groups the numbers of "lurkers" is prevalent on the active readers.

Internet is internationally diffused: it’s giustified to create a national ML?

The objectives of this local ML are not in contrast with the existence of international ML; we thinks that a great part of the information we may distribute have a local interest (announcement of Congresses, professional informations related to Italian Health service etc:..).

We have the aim to partecipate to a world-ring of ML and Web sites on Neurology and Neurophysiology with an interchange of contents ; we also suggest the creation of a ML specific for IFCN.

The relative novelty of the medium among neuroscientists is at present a limiting factors but our purpose is to contribute to the growth of a new communicative scenario.

What considerations from our experience?

The low resonance and use of our ML was not unexpected. So as in many others countries, italian neuroscientists prefer to publish in international Journal, like the EEG Journal and Italian Journal of Neurological Sciences, for the wide resonance. The only Italian Journal specifically devoted to Clinical Neurophysiology ("Rivista Italiana di EEG e Neurofisiologia clinica") expired many years ago. The cost of traditional pubblication is very high (expecially for Journals with a low number of subscribers. The cost of electronic publishing otherwise is very low. Why do not prefer that ? A resistence is related to the volatility of the WEB contents. What published only in the Web is a not-published content? What is the reliability and quality of contents in Internet? There is a general disagreement (not even justified) towards electronic publishing; this disagreement involves even ML: but professional ML are quite different to the Internet (specially Usenet) trash; they are in general, to our advise, simply underutilized.

Ven in Italy some universities have limited computers facilities and suitable Internet connection.

Are we ready for the new ways of communication ?

The most widely diffused traditional way of scientific communication is monodirectional from the authors to lecturers by mean of Scientific Journals. Public discussion is generally restricted to Congresses. E-mail world give you the possiblity to combine a wide diffusion of scientific contest with an immediate feed-back among readers and authors.

For these reasons we have created an electronic Neuroscience Journal (in Italian Language) "E-Neuro" (http://www.neuroscienze.netbusiness.it), whose open structure permits the discussion of contents in the Neurol-it ML.

An open discussion on the contents of research in progress is not usual among neuroscientists because valid results may be collected only at the end of sperimentation. However performing multicentric experimentations and establishing diagnostic protocols may find in discussion lists an ideal medium to grown up.

Others important rules of a ML are: