BACKGROUND‐Effective management of the medical and surgical aspects of patients who are treated in neurological intensive care units (NICUs) depends on periodic neurological assessment of brain function. This assessment can be aided by application of various monitoring tools on a periodic or continuous basis.REVIEW SUMMARY‐Intracranial pressure monitoring is standard in NICUs and allows for the continuous measurement of cerebral perfusion pressure. Transcranial Doppler can provide information about pending cerebral vasospasm after subarachnoid hemorrhage and can measure cerebral vasoreactivity. Jugular venous oximetry monitoring has been applied to patients with head injury. Paired measurement of both intracranial pressure and jugular venous oxygen content provides useful information to manage blood pressure, ventilation, and osmotherapy in patients with head injury. Continuous EEG may identify unsuspected nonconvulsive status epilepticus and when applied to all NICU patients may provide important information for medical decision making. Evoked potentials are useful in establishing prognosis for both adults and neonates.CONCLUSIONS‐The continuous measure of brain function of patients in NICUs is technologically feasible and devices that provide this information in real time are now commercially available. It is hoped that these devices can improve patient outcome and hospital efficiency.(THE NEUROLOGIST 6:83‐97, 2000)