CINP´s Hanns Hippius International Psychopharmacology Archies at the Psychiatry Clinic of Ludwig Maximilian University in Múnich
Collated by Peter Kadar
5(2). Contributions to the Archives
Thomas A. Ban’s Review of Thomas A. Ban, David Healy and Edward Shorter: The History of Psychopharmacology and the Story of CINP as told in Autobiography
Thomas A. Ban: CINP and its Past
Thomas A. Ban: Presidents of CINP
Thomas A. Ban: Neuropsychopharmacology in Latin America
Thomas A. Ban: Fifty years in Progress
Thomas A. Ban’s Review of Thomas A. Ban, David Healy and Edward Shorter: The History of Psychopharmacology and the Story of CINP as told in Autobiography
May 23, 2013
This series covers in autobiographical accounts the first 50 years in the history of neuropsychopharmacology. The autobiographies in Volume I (The Rise of Psychopharmacology and the Story of CINP) are from psychopharmacologists who began their professional careers in the 1950s and 1960s; in Volume II (The Triumph of Psychopharmacology and the Story of CINP), from those who started in the 1970s; in Volume III (From Psychopharmacology to Neuropsychopharmacology in the 1980s and the Story of CINP) who started in the 1980s; and in Volume IV (Reflections on Twentieth-Century Psychopharmacology) who started in the 1990s.
At the core of each volume are personal accounts in which the contributions of the scientists are at the center of the reflections, but also include several sections in which the reflections are focused on the mainstream of events, particular areas of research, individuals and organizations.
The series was the extension of an effort by CINP’s History Committee, during the chairmanship of Tom Ban, to document both the history of the College and the entire field. It was co-edited by Ban, David Healy and Edward Shorter. Its publication was supported by the College primarily from non-restricted publication grants received from Pierre Fabre, Janssen Pharmaceutica and Research Foundation, Inc. and Janssen Phamaceutica International in Collaboration with Organon International.
The series was first published by Animula (Budapest, Hungary) and the four volumes were released in 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2004 at CINP congresses in Glasgow, Brussels, Montreal and Paris. In 2010, with the support of Robert H. Belmaker (President, CINP 2008-2010) and the help of Gregers Wegener, CINP’s Webmaster, the Biographic Sketches and Cumulative Indexes were separated from Volume IV into a Volume V (Appendix) and the series was reprinted as a CINP publication, distributed by AMAZON. Currently each volume is available for purchase from AMAZON separately. Since the five volumes represent an entity, the publisher has been requested to make them available as a series.
Thomas A. Ban: CINP and its Past
Missing from the Membership Directory
Deceased, Retired or Dropped?
August 15, 2013
In trying to reconstruct CINP’s history we found that the names of many of those who played a role in the history of the College were no longer listed in the College’s Membership Directory. This report was written in 2004 and submitted to Oakley Ray at the time, Executive Secretary of CINP’s Central Office.
What evolved into CINP’s history committee started out in 1986 as an informal collaboration between Hanns Hippius, Ole Rafaelsen and I. After Ole Rafaelsen’s untimely death, Hippius and I continued. We began by asking presidents of the college between 1957 and 1986 to write their reminiscences of the biennial congresses that occurred under their stewardship (Ban and Hippius 1988). However, this very simple goal ran into trouble when the name and address of F.G. Valdecasas, one of the eight past presidents from the period who were still living, could not be found in the then current CINP membership directory. This was a surprise since Valdecasas was not only a past president, but also an honorary member. In our next project we invited the living founders of CINP to contribute a paper on their early experiences in the field (Ban and Hippius 1991). Again we ran into a similar predicament when the name and address of W. A. Stoll, one of the 18 surviving founders at the time, and treasurer of the 1st and 2nd executive committees, was no longer listed in the membership directory.
In both instances, the problem was resolved with the help of colleagues who knew their whereabouts. Then, in 2004, while preparing a biographic register to complement our four volumes autobiographical series on the history of psychopharmacology and CINP (Ban, Healy and Shorter 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004) we ran into the same kind of difficulty when trying to contact many of those elected to membership in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. In fact, 24 of the 76 contributors (from the CINP membership) to volume 1 of the series were no longer listed in the 2004-2006 membership directory. To the best of our knowledge, we thought that only six had passed away: Zoltan Boszormenyi, Herman Denber, Leo Hollister, Heinz Lehmann Miroslav Protiva and David Tedeschi. The other 18, we assumed, had retired, stopped paying their membership dues and consequently were dropped from the membership directory: Antonio Balestrieri (1964-Italy), Olga Benesova (1970-Czech Republic), Marcel Bickel (1968-Switzerland), Barry Blackwell (1972-USA), Jean-François Dreyfus (1976-France), Daniel Ginestet (1964-France), Paul Grof (1968-Canada), Jean Guyotat (1958-France), Hanfried Helmchen (1964-Germany), Alexander Karczmar 1970-USA), Pierre Lambert (1958-France), Izyaslav Lapin (1994-Russia), Allen Mirsky (1966-USA), Alberto Oliverio (1968-Italy), Trevor Silverstone (1970-UK), Pierre Simon (1966-France), John Smythies (1960s-USA) and George Ulett (1970s-USA).
Prompted by the recognition that approximately one of three contributors to Volume 1 were no longer listed in the directory, we discovered that out of the 519 members included in the 1977-78 directory, 334 were missing in 2004-2006. The list of those missing follows:
Abel E, Agnoli A, Allert MI, Amdisen A, Ansell GB, Asada S
Bailly R, Balestrieri A, Bapna JS, Baro F, Baruk H*, Bein HJ, Benesova O, Benkert O, Bergener M, Berner P, Bickel M, Biel JH, Bignami G, Blackwell B, Bobon DP*, Bobon J*, Bohacek N*, Boissier RJ*, Boleloucky ZJ, Bordeleau JM, Boutillier H, Boszormenyi Z*, Brill H*, Brimblecombe RW, Brodie BB*, Brousolle P, Brugmans J, Buckett WR, Burki HR, Buser P
Caldwell J, Carranza J, Carvalhal Ribas J, Cerletti A, Chrusciel TL, Ciurezu TC, Clark WG, Clouet D, Coirault R, Collard J, Colonna L, Cook L, Coper H, Corson SA*, Cottereau M-J, Crammer JL, Crane G, Cuenca E
Dasberg HH, De Albuquerque-Fortes JR, De Barahona Fernandez HJ, De Buck RP*, Degkwitz R, Delay J*, De Maio D, De Martis D, Denber HCB*, Deniker P*, De Oliveira Bastos P, Dewhurst WG, Di Carlo R, Di Carlo V, Dille JM, Di Mascio A*, Dom RJ, Domenjoz R*, Don A, Downing RW, Dreyfus J-F, Dufour H, Dugas M
Engelhardt D*, Engelmeier M-P, Escande MM, Essman WB, Estrada-Robles U, Everett GM
Faurbye A*, Fazio C, Feer H, Feldman H, Feline A, Fischer-Cornelssen KA*, Flament J, Fleischauer J, Floru L, Folch-Pi J, Forrest IS*, Forn J, Fragoso-Mendes JM, Friedhoff AJ*, Freedman DZ*, Freeman HL, Freyhan FA*, Fujimori M
Gantt HW*, Gatti GL, Gayral L, Gerle B, Giberti F, Ginestet D, Giurgea C*, Goldman D*, Goldstein M*, Goldwurm G, Goujet M-A, Gouret C, Green JP, Greenblatt M*, Grof P, Gross H, Grossman SP, Guy W*, Guyotat J
Haase HJ*, Haefely W, Hall GH, Hamilton M*, Hardesty AS, Harrer G, Helmchen H, Hoffmeister F, Holden JMC, Hole G, Hollister LE*
Idestrom C-M, Irwin S, Isbell H*, Itoh H*
Jacob J, Jacobsen E*, Janssen P*, Janzarik W, Jarvik M, Jenner FA, Johansson B, Jones RT, Jouvet M, Joyce CRB, Joyce-Basseres D, Jus A*
Kalinowsky LB*, Kanowski S, Karczmar A, Kety SS*, Keup P, Key BJ, Kido R, Kielholz P*, Killam KF*, King AR, Kirkegaard A, Klerman GL*, Kletzkin M, Kline NS*, Kobayashi T*, Kramer JC, Kranz H, Kreiskott H, Kryspin-Exner K, Kumar R*, Kunkel H, Kurihara M, Kurland A
Labhardt FA, Ladewig D, Ladisich W, Lambert C, Lambert P, Langner E, Lanssen JB, Lassenius B, Launey J, Lecomte JM, Le Douarec JC, Lehmann HE*, Lemberger T, Lesse S, Leuner H, Levine J, Levy J, Lienert GA, Loew DM, Longo V, Lopez-Ibor AJJ, Lundquist GAR*, Lunn V
Maj J*, Maller O, Mariategui J, Mattke DJ, Maxwell C, Maxwell DR, May PRA*, McClure D*, McDonald RK, Mercier J, Mesiha FS, Metysova J, Meyer HH*, Mihoviilovic M*, Mirsky A, Moller Nielsen IM, Montagu JD, Monserrat-Esteve S, Moore KE, Moroji T, Morselli PL, Mowbray RM, Munkvad I, Musacchio JM
Nahunek K, Navarro G, Niemegeers CJE, Nies A, Nikolova MP, Nodine JH
Oberholzer R, Oliverio A, Osmond H*
Papeschi R, Paes De Sousa MP*, Pekkarinen A, Pelc I, Perier M, Peron-Magnan P, Perris C*, Petersen PV*, Petkov V, Pfeiffer CC*, Pichler E, Poldinger W*, Polvan N, Porot M*, Protiva M*
Quadbeck G*
Radouco-Thomas C*, Radouco-Thomas S, Rafaelsen OJ*, Rainaut J, Randrup A, Ravn J, Rech RH, Rees L*, Rennert H, Revol L,Reyntjens A, Richter D, Rigal JM, Roos B-E, Ropert R, Rosic N, Roth LJ, Rothman T*, Ruther E
Saksena V, Salva JA, Samanin R, Saraf KR, Sarro R, Saxena B*, Sayers AC, Scheel-Kruger J, Schiele BC*, Schmitt W, Schulze H, Seiden LS, Shagass C*, Shaw DM, Sheth UK, Shopsin B, Siegel RK, Silverstone T, Simon P, Sirnes TB, Sjostrom R, Smythies J, Solti G, Soubrie P, Spence PJS, Spiegelberg U, St.Laurent J, Stark P*, Stolerman P, Stoll WA*, Stromgern E, Sugrue MF, Summerfield A, Sutter JM
Taeschler M, Takahashi R, Tedeschi DH*, Teller DN, Temkov I, Tesarova O, Tetreault L, Theobald W, Todrick A, Trabucchi E*
Ulett G, Unna KR, Usdin E*, Utena H
Valdecasas FG, Valzelli L, Van Andel H, Van der Horst L*, Van Rossum JM, Varga E, Veale WL, Vencovsky E*, Vinarova E, Voelkel A*, Vojtechovsky M, Volmat R, Von Kerekjarto M, Votava Z*
Watt DC, White RP, Wijesinghe CP, Wikler A*, Wilhelm M, Wilson CWM, Winkelman, NW, Wirth W, Wittenborn JR*, Wuttke W
Zapletalek M, Zarifian E
We are uncertain how many of those who are missing passed away, retired or just dropped their membership?
*Confirmed deceased
References:
Ban TA, Hippius H, editors. Thirty Years CINP Berlin: Springer; 1988.
Ban TA, Hippius H, editors. Psychopharmacology in Perspective. Berlin: Springer; 1992.
Ban TA, Healy D, Shorter E, editors. The Rise of Psychopharamcology and the Story of CINP. Budapest: Animula; 1998.
Ban TA, Healy D, Shorter E, editors. The Triumph of Psychopharmacology and the Story of CINP. Budapest: Animula, 2000.
Ban TA, Healy D, Shorter E, editors. From Psychopharmacology to Neuropsychopharmacology in the 1980s and the Story of CINP. Budapest: Animula; 2002.
Ban TA, Healy D, Shorter E, editors. Reflections on Twentieth-Century Psychopharmacology. Budapest: Animula; 2004.
April 15, 2021
Thomas A. Ban: Neuropsychopharmacology in Latin America
August 22, 2013
This paper was written on invitation in circa 2007 to present “Libro de Neuropsicofarmacologia del CLANP.” The title Neuropsychopharmacology in Latin America was added in circa 2010
It is my privilege to present you Libro de Neuropsicofarmacologia del CLANP, edited Iby professors Guillermo Dorado from Argentina, Jaime Vengoechea from Columbia and Enrique Galli from Peru, with contributions by neuroscientists and clinicians from eight Latin American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru.
Neuropsychopharmacology is the scientific discipline that is dedicated to the study and treatment of the pathophysiology of mental illness with the employment of centrally acting drugs. It was born in the 1950s with the identification of chemical neurotransmitters in the central nervous system, the introduction of the first set of therapeutically effective psychotropic drugs and the construction of the spectrophotofluorimeter. This new instrument provided a means to measure the effect of psychotropic drugs on the concentration of neurotransmitters and their metabolites in the brain. It also rendered psychiatric disorders accessible to scientific scrutiny. In less than 30 years pharmacotherapy became the primary form of treatment in psychiatry. By the dawn of the 21st century neuropsychopharmacology shifted the understanding of mental activity from psychological to biological and has become the driving force in the destigmatization of mental illness.
Recognition that one of the essential prerequisites of successful neuropsychopharmacological research is a continuous dialogue between clinicians and basic scientists, led to the founding of the Collegium Internationale Neuro-Psychopharmacologicum. The CINP was launched on the 3rd of September 1957, during the 2nd World Congress of Psychiatry by 32 prominent clinicians and basic scientists from 13 countries in a restaurant at the Zurich railway station. One of the founders of the CINP was Honorio Delgado, a prominent Peruvian psychiatrist who, during the first half of the 20th century, was instrumental in transforming psychiatry in Latin America, by adopting phenobarbital in the treatment of epilepsy, malarial treatment in cerebral syphilis and pentetrazol-induced convulsions and insulin coma therapy in schizophrenia. Delgado was also one of the selected psychiatrists invited to participate in the first international meeting on chlorpromazine held in Paris in 1955, and he was the first psychiatrist in Latin America to use imipramine in the treatment of depressive states and to combine imipramine and electroshock in treatment refractory melancholia (Mariategui 1992). The youngest among CINP’s founders was Pedro Tellez-Carrasco, a psychiatrist from Madrid. He moved to Venezuela in the early 1960s and has played an important role in the introduction of many psychotropic drugs, from lithium to clozapine, in Latin America (Tellez-Carrasco 1998).
At the time the CINP was founded, communication of information in general - and not just in neuropsychopharmacology - was poor. The scarce knowledge about the pharmacology and clinical application of psychotropic drugs was scattered around and difficult to find. There were only two books that dealt with the pharmacotherapy of mental illness: Wolfgang de Boor’s published in 1956 in German and Abraham Wikler’s published in 1957 in English. The first journal in the field, Psychopharmacologia, was launched in 1958 and the second, The International Journal of Neuropharmacology (now Neuropharmacology), was founded in 1961. For many years, it was one of the major tasks of CINP to provide education in neuropsychopharmacology and spread the rapidly accumulating knowledge on the use of the steadily growing number of psychotropic drugs at its biennial congresses. The first Congress of the Collegium took place in 1958 in Rome. It was organized by Emilio Trabucchi from Milan in collaboration with an international team of 16 neuropsychopharmacologists. Five members of this team were from Latin America: R. Casteluccio, Argentina, F. Jeri, Peru, M. Loforte Goncalves and H. Peres, Brazil, and E. Ratinoff, Chile. The Congress was attended by more than 500 delegates, from 26 countries (Ban and Ray 1996).
The difficulty of getting access to information in neuropsychopharmacology remained so great and communication of knowledge in the new field was so poor that in the 1960s the World Health Organization established two International Reference Centers, one in Washington for Information on Psychotropic Drugs and another in Paris for the Study of Adverse Effects of Psychotropic Drugs. They grew into an International Reference Center Network with National Reference Centers established around the world, including one in Mexico, under the direction of Dionisio Nieto, and another one in Colombia, under the direction of Carlos Leon. The journal of the network, the Psychopharmacology Bulletin, edited by Alice Leeds, was distributed (a limited number of copies freely) around the world. To meet the pressing needs of education in neuropsychopharmacology, Gaston Castellanos, a Mexican neuropsychiatrist, while an officer at WHO extended the activities of some of these centers to train educators and provide courses for teachers in psychopharmacology (Castellanos 2000).
The organization of national associations in neuropsychopharmacology began shortly after the 1st CINP Congress. A meeting at Jesenik Spa in 1959 gave rise to the Czechoslovak Psychopharmacological Society and a meeting in Washington in 1960 gave rise to the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. The first national organization in Latin America, the Argentine Society of Psychopharmacology, was founded in 1963. In the years that followed several other national organizations in psychopharmacology emerged in Latin America. Today there are national colleges of neuropsychopharmacology in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. These colleges play an important role in education about the use of psychotropic drugs and in the dissemination of knowledge in the field. Some of these colleges have broad ranging activities. In addition to the provision of “continuing education in psychopharmacology for psychiatrists, neurologists, neurosurgeons and general practitioners,” activities of the Colegio Peruana Neuropsychopharmacologia, for example, include programs for the “facilitation of an early start of pharmacotherapy in schizophrenia and depression” and for the “fostering of research in the neurosciences” (Galli 2004). Yet the activities of these colleges are restricted to their own country and have remained by and large isolated from each other.
The founding of the Colegio Latinoamericano de Neuropsicofarmacologia (CLANP) took place on October 20, 1994, in Bahia, Brazil, with Helena Cajil as founding president and Jorge Costa e Silva as honorary president. The College provides an administrative structure for the coordination of the activities of the national organizations in Latin America. The publishing of Libro de Neuropsychopharmacologia del CLAMP provides the organization with a common platform for the teaching of neuropsychopharmacology across the different countries in Latin America. It also provides a common reference for the use of psychotropic drugs in clinical practice with the highest contemporary standards.
More than 40 years passed since the publication in 1965 of the first comprehensive text in Latin America in which Edmundo Fisher, Gustavo Poch and Ronaldo Ucha Udabe from Argentina reviewed the first 10 years in the development and clinical use of psychotropic drugs. Libro de Neuropsicofarmacologia del CLANP is a synthesis of more than 50 years of clinical experience with psychotropic drugs and of the rapidly accumulating knowledge in the neurobiology and pharmacological treatment of mental illness. By reflecting the state of art in neuropsychopharmacology it will help clinicians and educators in their work and it should also stimulate basic and clinical research to develop clinically more selective and thereby more effective psychotropic medications.
References:
Ban TA, Ray O. The first CINP Congress. In: Ban TA, Ray O, editors. A History of the CINP. Nashville; JM Productions; 1996, pp. 379-81.
Castellanos G. Notes about the WHO program in psychopharmacology. In: Ban TA, Healy D, Shorter E, editors. The Triumph of Psychopharmacology and the Story of CINP. Budapest: Animula; 2000, pp. 97-9.
De Boor W. Pharmakopsychologie und Psychopathologie. Berlin: Springer; 1956.
Fisher E, Poch G, Ucha Udabe R. Psicofarmacologia: Buenos Aires: López Eschegoyen; 1965.
Galli E. The history of the Peruvian College of Neuropsychopharmacology. In: Ban TA, Healy D, Shorter E, editors. Reflections on Twentieth Century Psychopharmacology. Budapest: Animula; 2004, pp.643-44.
Mariategui J. Honorio Delgado. In: Ban TA, Hippius H, editors. Perspectives in Psychopharmacology. A Personal Account of the Founders of the Collegium Internationale Neuro-Psychopharmacologicum. Berlin: Springer; 1992, pp. 14-15.
Tellez-Carrasco P. How I became a founder of CINP: My story before and after. In: Ban TA, Healy D, Shorter E, editors. The Triumph of Psychopharmacology and the Story of CINP. Budapest: Animula; 1998, pp.307-11.
Wikler A. The Relation of Psychiatry and Pharmacology. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins; 1957.
Thomas A. Ban: Fifty Years in Progress
September 12, 2013
“Fifty years in progress” was presented at a symposium chaired by Fridolin Sulser, organized in celebration of the fifty years anniversary of CINP at the 26th biennial congress of the organization, held in Munich, Germany in 2008.
The dream of Jacques Moreau de Tours (1804-84), a French psychiatrist, to use drugs in the dissection of mental illness and of Claude Bernard(1813-78), a French physiologist, in the study of the physiology of the nervous system, has become a realistic goal in the mid-1950s with the introduction of effective pharmacological treatments in psychiatry and the spectrophotofluorimeter. The capability to measure changes in the concentration of neurotransmitter monoamines in the brain led to the birth of neuropsychopharmacology and opened a perspective for the development of rational pharmacological treatments of mental disorders The notion that studying the mode of action of psychotropic drugs could lead to information about the neurochemical underpinning of mental pathology, a pre-requisite for the development of rational treatment, was encouraged by findings of Bernard Brodie and his associates and especially of Alfred Pletscher (at the National Heart Institute of the United States). Their research showed that drugs like reserpine and iproniazid, which were reported to cause depression and euphoria, respectively, in some patients, have the opposite effects on serotonin levels in the brain (Ban 2004).
Successful research in neuropsychopharmacology depends on communication between pharmacologists and psychiatrists, as pointed out in 1957 by Abraham Wikler (an American pioneer of neuropsychoharmacology) in his classic text on The Relationship of Psychiatry and Pharmacology. To facilitate interaction Wolfgang de Boor, a German psychiatrist, and Corneille Radouco-Thomas, a Romanian-born pharmacologist (working in Switzerland at the time), proposed at the First International Symposium on Psychotropic Drugs in Milan, Italy, the founding of an international association that was to become the CINP. The CINP was inaugurated about four months later, on the 2nd of September in 1957, at a dinner meeting in the buffet of the Zurich railway station. Ernst Rothlin, a former director of Sandoz (a major Swiss pharmaceutical company at the time), was elected president and the 32 participants of the dinner became the founders of the Collegium. Today, 50 years later, seven of the founders are alive and two, Hanns Hippius and Cornelis Van Rhyn, are participating in this congress.
The founders agreed that the members of the organization should meet at least once every two years to discuss matters related to neuropsychopharmacology, but differed in opinion about CINP’s role in education and, consequently, about membership and the format of the biennial meetings. For Emilio Trabucchi, the professor of pharmacology at the University of Milan (who was to become the organizer of CINP’s first congress), the purpose of the CINP was education; the spreading of information on developments in the new field, whereas for Rothlin it was research; the bringing together experts from all around the world to scrutinize and debate their findings in order to generate information that would guide psychotropic drug development. A compromise was reached, and it was decided that membership should be restricted to experts, but congresses should alternate between open and closed meetings (Ban 2006).
The CINP was launched in September 1958 with an open meeting in Rome. At this first congress, as well as at the three subsequent congresses, (in Basel, Munich, and Birmingham, in 1960, ’62 and ’64) organized by (five of the founders): Rothlin, Dieter Bente, Hanns Hippius and Fritz Flugel and Philip Bradley, during the presidencies of Rothlin, Paul Hoch and Hans Hoff, issues at the heart of neuropsychopharmacology, such as drug-induced psychoses, the mode of action of drugs with known therapeutic effects, the translation of findings from animal to man, the relationship between “model psychoses” to naturally occurring psychoses and the relevance of mode of action of psychotherapeutic drugs to the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders, were addressed and discussed. It was at the Basel congress that Arvid Carlsson, a Swedish professor of pharmacology, presented his findings on selective changes on brain monoamines with psychotropic drugs that were to influence psychotropic drug development for decades. Neuropharmacological research focused on monoamines was instrumental to the formulation of the catecholamine hypothesis of affective disorders by Joseph Schildkraut (an American psychiatrist) and the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia by Jacques Van Rossum (a Dutsch pharmacologist). Yet, by the time of the Tarragona congresses in 1968, organized by Francisco Valdecasas during his own presidency, it was recognized that the pharmacological heterogeneity in responsiveness to the same drug within a psychiatric diagnosis has precluded the possibility of deriving meaningful information about the biochemical underpinning of mental disorders by studying the mode of action of psychotropic drugs.
The pharmacological heterogeneity within psychiatric diagnoses also delayed the acceptance of psychotropic drugs by the psychiatric community. It was only in the 1970s, during the presidencies of Eric Jacobssen, Hippius, Pierre Deniker and Leo Hollister, that pharmacotherapy became the primary form of treatment of mental disorders. Presentations, like Mogens Schou’s, a Danish pioneer of neuropsychopharmacology, at the Prague congress in 1970 during Heinz Lehmann’s presidency, on the prophylactic use of lithium in bipolar disorder, and of many others, to international audiences at other CINP congresses, facilitated this development
In the early 1980s, during the presidencies of Carlsson, Paul Janssen and Paul Kielholz, neuropharmacological research extended from cerebral monoamines to neuropeptides and from neurochemistry at the synaptic cleft to receptor bindings. Since the clinical methodology remained restricted to that developed for the demonstration of “efficacy” (with the objective that no substance with potential benefit in a given population should be discarded), the gap between pre-clinical and clinical findings grew so wide that it required the translation of neuropharmacological findings for clinicians that the new drugs could be used optimally. With these new developments, the emphasis at CINP congresses shifted to presentations that would guide and train a steadily growing new cadre of neuropsychopharmacologists to be involved in teaching prescribing physicians how to use of psychotropic drugs with consideration of their pharmacodynamic and phramacokinetic properties. The changes began in the mid-1980s during the presidencies of Ole Rafaelsen and William Bunney, with the establishment of Travel Awards for Young Investigators to be able to attend CINP meetings. They continued throughout the 1990s by extending CINP activities to presidents’ workshops, during the presidencies of Alec Coppen and Julien Mendlewicz, and regional meetings, during the presidencies of Lewis Judd and Claude de Montigny; increasing the size of the biennial meetings and implementing a “mentor-mentee” program, during the presidencies of Julien Mendlewicz and Giorgio Racagni. Simultaneously with these developments in 1986, during Rafaelsen’s presidency, CINP’s logo was introduced; in 1999 (July 26), during Helmut Beckmann’s presidency, the Collegium was incorporated in Zurich; and at the dawn of the 21st century, during the presidencies of Eugene Paykel and Herbert Meltzer, the corporation established its central office in Nashville with Oakley Ray as its executive secretary and regionalized to facilitate its educational activities.
The increasing emphasis in CINP on communication of information and education about the use of psychotropic drugs was formally recognized in 2006 during Brian Leonard’s presidency with the amendment of CINP’s constitution to include training programs as one of the three activities for the CINP to achieve its objectives. By appointing Norman Sartorius, the former director of the division of mental health of the World Health Organization, as chairman of a special task force with the mandate to review the evidence for the use of antidepressant medications, Leonard succeeded in having the report of the task force, and CINP’s recommendations about the use of antidepressants based on the report, discussed worldwide. It was also during Leonard’s presidency that CINP’s history committee, chaired at the time by Ronaldo Ucha Udabe (an Argentine psychiatrist) published its review on the neurotransmitter era, the first epoch in the history of neuropsychopharmacology (Ban and Ucha Udabe 2006). The history committee has evolved from a working collaboration that started in 1986 at CINP’s San Juan congress between Ole Rafaelsen, Hanns Hippius and Tom Ban with the objective to document the founding and early years of the organization. However, in the mid-1990s, with the appointment of David Healy, a psychiatrist with special interest in critically reviewing the history of neuropsychopharmacology, and Edward Shorter, a medical historian to the committee, the objective of the committee was extended to review, in autobiographical accounts, the history of neuropsychopharmacology and the CINP.
While CINP’s educational activities were extended by meetings worldwide, organized by the antidepressant task force, CINP’s administrative structure was completed in 2006 during Torgny Svensson’s presidency, after moving the central office from Nashville to Glasgow, with the appointment of Mike Mitchell, as the corporation’s first executive director. Svensson’s presidency concludes the first 50 years in the history of CINP with this Congress, the third CINP Congress in Munch, organized by Hans-Jurgen Moller.
Far from being an aging, moribund society, the CINP is an active, energetic society at its 50th anniversary, invigorated by the debate triggered by the report of its antidepressant task force in CINP’s journal, The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, launched in 1998 during de Montigny’s presidency with Bernard Lerer as editor-in chief. Central to this debate is the limitation of the methodology used in clinical investigations with antidepressants and the danger that a review of evidence-based findings without the necessary understanding the limitations of the methodology could lead to wrong conclusions about the optimal use of antidepressants.
Today, the CINP is a prosperous organization with a membership approaching 1,500 from 52 countries on six continents. But the organization is confronted with the fact that despite all advances in neuropharmacological research, rational drug development has not progressed since the birth of neuropsychopharmacology in the 1950s.
In about two days, at the business meeting Robert Belmaker will take over the baton from Torgny Svensson to lead the CINP into a new epoch. It remains to be seen whether the organization will continue only moving further in the direction set in the mid-1980s and become an even more powerful organization in the communication of information as it is, or extends its activities by spearheading a continuous pharmacological re-evaluation of psychiatric classifications and diagnoses to fulfill the vision of Ernst Rothlin, its founding president, to generate information that would guide the pharmaceutical industry in the development of rational pharmacological treatments for mental illness.
References:
Ban TA. Neuropsychopharmacology and the history of pharmacotherapy in psychiatry. A review of developments in the 20th century. In: Ban TA, Healy D, Shorter E, editors. Reflections on Twentieth-century Psychopharmacology. Budapest: Animula; 2004, pp. 697-720.
Ban TA. A history of the Collegium Internationale Neuro-Psychopharmacologicum. Progress in Neuro-Psychophamacology & Biological Psychiatry, 2006;30:599-616.
Ban TA, Ucha Udabe R, editors. The Neurotransmitter Era in Neuropsychopharmacology. Buenos Aires: Polemos; 2006.
April 15, 2021