Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide researchers and clinicians an overwiew of the Williams syndrome, a genetic disorder that has attracted researchers in neurocognition, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, and molecular genetics. The last decades have seen a growing interest in the complex neuropsychological profile of people with this syndrome, because it produced "peaks and valleys" among cognitive domains, opened relevant questions about the independence of the different functional domains and on their relationship with the general cognition. The Williams syndrome provides a model for the study of brain-behavior relationships as well as for their molecular genetic underpinnings.