Early History: Oliver Zangwill, in a tribute to Henry Hécaen, wrote
that the idea of the meetings was first introduced by Hécaen at a
party in his home during the meeting of the International Congress of
Psychiatry in Paris in 1949. "After dinner, Henry outlined his proposal to
found an international group to promote knowledge and understanding of
brain functions and cognate issues on the borderline of neurology,
psychology and psychiatry." (Zangwill, 1984, Neuropsychologia,
22:813-815)
The first meeting was held in September 1951 in Mondsee, Austria. The
meeting was organized by Hans Hoff, Chair of the Neurology Department at
the University of Vienna. Co-organizers were Hécaen (France), Klaus
Conrad (Germany) and Zangwill (UK). Other participants were Eberhard Bay,
Richard Jung and Franz Günther von Stockert (Germany), Otto
Pötzl and Klaus Gloning (Austria), and Richard Oldfield, Moira
Williams, Malcolm Piercy and John MacFie (UK).
As pointed out by Boller, the Symposium has always been a meeting of
a relatively small group of individuals to hear about and discuss
various topics relevant to the field. A typical organization was to ask
an anatomist to review the pathways involved in the function being discussed,
followed by a neurophysiologist who would review the relevant actions
of the neurons along the functional pathways, then a behaviourally-
orientated neurologist or neuropsychologist to discuss the behaviour
Supported by the underlying neuropsychology. For most of the history of the
Symposium, there were three topics presented over 5 days, with ample time
set aside for discussion. In recent years (post-pandemic), a fourth
session was added without a designated theme in order to allow
outstanding neuroscientists to present their work (this also makes them
eligible for membership). For many years, the number of members was held
at "not more than 40"; currently the Symposium counts 120 members and 24
Fellows from 6 geographic regions (about 60% from Europe, 30% from North
America, and 10% from other non-European countries).
To give an idea about the characteristics of a typical meeting in recent
years, the 2025 Symposium (Portoferraio, Isola d'Elba, Italy) had
80 participants, of which 59 were members and 21 were guest speakers
or host-country guests.