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A birds-eye-view from
W Herrmann
A note on the history of pharmaco-electroencephalography by
M. Fink presented at the Italian EEG Society in 1981
Introductory remarks by W Hermann to the book on pEEG
(1982)
Introductory remarks by B. Schnieders to the book on
pEEG (1982)
IPEG founding document
The roots of the IPEG go back to Helmut Kunkel and Milan Matejcek, who organized several meetings about the quantification of electroencephalography. Milan Matejcek, who established a clinical pharmacology research unit at Sandoz, was responsible for the pharmacological aspects of these early get-togethers. This group already carried the name of "International Pharmaco-EEG Group", but at that time it was not a society yet. In 1978, when I joined the Federal Health Office in Berlin, I reported to Gunther Stille, the head of the Department of Clinical Experimental Pharmacology and Therapeutics. We soon agreed that pharmaco-electroencephalography, both animal and human, should play a more important role, especially for the safety aspects of drugs in the CNS area. We decided therefore to have a joint meeting of the German Federal Health Office and the IPEG, which was held from June 27 to June 29, 1980 in Berlin. This meeting had two major aspects: the methodology and the application of EEG research in clinical pharmacology. Werner Koella was invited for his work on animal EEG, Stanislav Kubicki and Johann Kugler for the clinical EEG and Max Fink and Turan Itil for the pharmacological aspects of EEG research.
The importance of the use of quantification methods of the EEG in drug development was given introductory remarks by Bernhard Schnieders and myself and were published in 1982 in the book "Electroencephalography in Drug Research", edited by W.M. Hermann. Click for those introductory remarks on the following names (Herrmann, Schnieders).
Then on October 20, 1980 it was decided to transform the IPEG into an International Society. The founding members were Stanislav Kubicki, Helmut Kunkel, Turan Itil, Johann Kugler, Milan Matejcek, Werner Koella, Dieter Bente, Max Fink, Gunther Stille and myself. The founding document is attached. The first president of the IPEG was Helmut Kunkel, who organized a symposium in Hannover in 1982. In 1984 the symposium was held in Vienna. The next one was organized in 1986 in Santa Margherita Ligura under the presidency of Johann Kugler with the help of Walter Sannita. The 1988 meeting was organized with the help of M. Saito in Kobe, Japan. The 1990 meeting was in Goteborg, under the presidency of Milan Matejcek. The next meeting was in Boca Raton and was organized by Turan Itil. Then in 1994 the symposium was organized by myself in Berlin and finally in 1996 in Prague under the presidency of Milos Matousek.
From the very beginning the IPEG was a small society, which attracted both animal and
clinical pharmacologists using pharmaco-EEG as an instrument as well as scientists who
developed the methodology for various aspects of EEG-studies, including mathematicians,
electrotechnicians and statisticians. It remained a small club, which was truly
international. On several occasions it had been discussed whether the IPEG should rather
be a sub-unit or a specialized group within another larger international
neurophysiological society. The members, however, felt that their particular aspects of
the development of pharmacological agents, using neurophysiological instruments in animal
toxicology and clinical pharmacology, would not be covered in the same manner if the IPEG
did not remain an independent society. With the further development of animal pharmacology
and especially sleep research new, interesting aspects for drug development and drug
safety will certainly arise, giving more impetus to our society. Having a newsletter and a
web-site will further improve the communication and will make the society, without doubt,
more attractive to new members.
W.M. Herrmann
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