Honorary Plenary Lectures

ExCo, EMEA Chapter, IFCN is delighted to announce the establishment of three named plenary lectures to be given during its forthcoming Congresses. We will have the honour to welcome for:

• The Lopes da Silva Lecture in EEG and central neurophysiology: Patrick Chauvel, France/USA.
• The Buchthal Lecture in EMG and peripheral neurophysiology: Matthew Kiernan, Australia.
• The Hagbarth Lecture in human neurophysiology: Håkan Olausson, Sweden.
• Automatic EEG reading: myth or reality? : Margita Seeck, Switzerland
• The Neuroscience and Phenomenology of Deafferentation : Jonathan Cole, United Kingdom

The IFCN has had plenary lectures named after eminent figures for some years, as has the European Academy of Neurology, so ExCo EMEA Chapter thought it appropriate to honour figures from our past, and the lecturers themselves, in this way. The lectures are named after three of our most distinguished past professors.

Fritz Buchthal (1907-2003) is a former professor of neurophysiology from Copenhagen, Denmark. He was at the forefront of the introduction of scientific experiment and quantifiable data into the clinical investigation of patients with nerve and muscle disease. For many years he was a towering figure in peripheral neurophysiology, (EMG and nerve conduction studies), teaching graduates from all over the world and receiving many honours. On retiring from Copenhagen he moved to the National Institutes of Health in Washington DC and then settled in Santa Barbara, California, where he consulted weekly at the Children's Hospital in San Francisco until he was 90.

Fernando Henrique Lopes da Silva, (1935-2019). professor of Physiology at Amsterdam University and scientific director of the Dutch Institute of Epilepsy. After this academic service, he was appointed Emeritus Professor in Amsterdam and invited professor at Lisbon University. His main contribution was in brain oscillatory mechanisms studied with EEG and MEG, leading to understanding of the cerebral systems associated with states of vigilance and sleep, and cognitive-motor function, focusing on epilepsy. He also edited, with Don Schomer, the VIIth edition of Niedermeyer’s Electroencephalography.

Karl-Erik Hagbarth, (1926-2005). Professor of Clinical Neurophysiology, Uppsala University. He will be remembered, with Vallbo, for the development of microneurography, and for subsequent seminal observations on sensory mechanisms. But he made many other contributions; on descending control of sensory systems, human reflexes, the motor effects of vibration and the tonic vibration reflect and on long latency reflexes. He combined seeing patients as a clinical neurophysiologist, with a career as a neuroscientist who opened up the investigation of basic physiology in conscious cooperative human subjects.

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