Announcing our new BNA President-Elect: Tara Spires-Jones
15th April 2021
Our history
Our origins stretch back to the 60s, when informal pub meetings were formalised into what was first called the Brain Research Association. Our members, past and present, include world-leading scientists making major discoveries in neuroscience.
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Our origins
In the 1960s, a new type of interdisciplinary science gained an official name: neuroscience.
Neuroscience first saw the day of light under the name of the ‘Neurosciences Research Program’ or NRP. Founded in 1962, the NRP went on to become the American Society for Neuroscience.
In Britain, meanwhile, the first organisation that could lay claim to being dedicated to neuroscience was the predecessor of the British Neuroscience Association; the Brain Research Association (BRA) formally founded in London in 1968. The BRA shared the ethos of the American NRP, namely to promote multidisciplinarity and collaboration across the brain sciences.
Yet the BRA came from very humble beginnings.
It started as an eclectic group of like-minded scientists – not yet neuroscientists – who would gather at the Black Horse pub in Rathbone Place, London, to discuss topics that cut across different disciplines in brain science. This “brain discussion group,” sometimes also called the London Neurobiology Discussion Group, was initiated by four scientists: Steven Rose, John Lagnado, John Dobbing, and Robert Balázs.
From the mid-1960s the BRA promoted neuroscience in the UK, organizing conferences and workshops, acting as a lobby group, promoting new courses, degrees, centres and chairs in the neurosciences and gradually engaging in the ethical and social implications emerging from this new field of research.
The first BRA committee, elected in 1968 by postal vote, comprised eight members from different regions of the UK: John B. Cavanagh, Barry A. Cross, John Dobbing, Chris Evans, Edward George Gray, Pat Wall, Ian C. Whitefield, and Oliver L. Zangwill. Derek Richter and Donald MacKay (see The origins of the British Neuroscience Association by Edward Reynolds (2017)). UK representatives on the Central Council of the International Brain Research Organization, should also be acknowledged for their role in formalising the BRA as the first national neuroscience association in the UK.
It wasn’t until 1996 that BRA became the British Neuroscience Association. The linguistic mutation from ‘brain’ to ‘neuroscience’ is an illuminating moment in the history of the BNA (and brain research more broadly) for it reflects the rise of neuroscience in both scientific and popular imaginations.
(Above text based on article in the 2012 BNA Bulletin, The Legend of the Black Horse, by Joelle M. Abi-Rached, Anne Cooke and Steven Rose)
See further information about the early years of the BNA in the Archive, below.
Trustees
BNA Officers and Trustees from 2017 to present
| Year | Officers | Trustees | |
| 2019-2020 |
President: Annette Dolphin Secretary: Zoe Kourtzi Treasurer: Catherine Harmer |
Manfred Berners Kevin Cox Annette Dolphin Anthony Isles Stafford Lightman |
Anne Lingford-Hughes Rosamund Langston Alan Palmer Narender Ramnani |
| 2018-2019 |
President: Stafford Lightman Secretary: Zoe Kourtzi Treasurer: Catherine Harmer |
John Aggleton Manfred Berners Kevin Cox Annette Dolphin Anthony Isles |
Anne Lingford-Hughes Rosamund Langston Alan Palmer Narender Ramnani |
| 2017-2018 |
President: Stafford Lightman Secretary: Emil Toescu Treasurer: Catherine Harmer |
John Aggleton |
Anne Lingford-Hughes Rosamund Langston Alan Palmer Narender Ramnani |
BNA Officers and Trustees 2014 - 2017
| Year | President | Secretary | Treasurer | Non-Executive Directors |
| 2016-2017 | John Aggleton | Emil Toescu | Attila Sik | Alan Palmer Manfred Berners Kevin Cox |
| 2015-2016 | John Aggleton | Emil Toescu | Attila Sik |
Alan Palmer |
| 2014-2015 | Russell Foster | Bruno Frenguelli | Attila Sik |
Alan Palmer |
BNA Officers 1968 - 2014
| Year | President (Chair 1968-1997) | Secretary | Treasurer |
| 2013-2014 | Russell Foster | Bruno Frenguelli | Duncan Banks |
| 2012-2013 | David Nutt | Bruno Frenguelli | Duncan Banks |
| 2011-2012 | David Nutt | Bruno Frenguelli | Duncan Banks |
| 2010-2011 | Trevor Robbins | Bruno Frenguelli | Duncan Banks |
| 2009-2010 | Trevor Robbins | Colin Ingram | Duncan Banks |
| 2008-2009 | Graham Collingridge | Colin Ingram | Stefan Przyborski |
| 2007-2008 | Graham Collingridge | Colin Ingram | Stefan Przyborski |
| 2006-2007 | Richard Frackowiak | Debbie Dewar | Stefan Przyborski |
| 2005-2006 | Richard Frackowiak | Debbie Dewar | Colin Ingram |
| 2004-2005 | Richard Frackowiak | Debbie Dewar | Colin Ingram |
| 2003-2004 | Nancy Rothwell | Raj Kalaria | Ian Varndell |
| 2002-2003 | Nancy Rothwell | Raj Kalaria | Ian Varndell |
| 2001-2002 | Nancy Rothwell | Raj Kalaria | Ian Varndell |
| 2000-2001 | Nancy Rothwell | Raj Kalaria | Ian Varndell |
| 1999-2000 | Colin Blakemore | Paul Bolam | Lindy Holden-Dye |
| 1998-1999 | Colin Blakemore | Paul Bolam | Lindy Holden-Dye |
| 1997-1998 | Colin Blakemore | Paul Bolam | Lindy Holden-Dye |
| 1996-1997 | Susan Iversen | Paul Bolam | Philip Bradley |
| 1995-1996 | Susan Iversen | Mike Stewart | Philip Bradley |
| 1994-1995 | Susan Iversen | Mike Stewart | Philip Bradley |
| 1993-1994 | Richard Morris | Mike Stewart | Philip Bradley |
| 1992-1993 | Richard Morris | Mike Stewart | Philip Bradley |
| 1991-1992 | Richard Morris | Ian Kilpatrick | Philip Bradley |
| 1990-1991 | Richard Morris | Ian Kilpatrick | John Garthwaite |
| 1989-1990 | John Kelly | Peter Roberts | John Garthwaite |
| 1987-1989 | John Kelly | Peter Roberts | Steve Logan |
| 1986-1987 | John Kelly | Peter Roberts | Ray Hill |
| 1985-1986 | John O’Keefe | Vicky Sterling | Ray Hill |
| 1984-1985 | John O’Keefe | Vicky Sterling | Ray Hill |
| 1983-1984 | John O’Keefe | Vicky Sterling | Ray Hill |
| 1982-1983 | Adam Sillito | Vicky Sterling | Ray Hill |
| 1981-1982 | Adam Sillito | Vicky Sterling | Paul Lewis |
| 1979-1981 | John Wolstencroft | John O’Keefe | Paul Lewis |
| 1978-1979 | John Wolstencroft | John O’Keefe | Sandra File |
| 1977-1978 | Geof Einon | John O’Keefe | Sandra File |
| 1976-1977 | Horace Barlow | Geof Einon | Sandra File |
| 1974-1976 | Horace Barlow | Geof Einon | John Wolstencroft |
| 1973-1974 | Pat Wall | Chris Evans | John Wolstencroft |
| 1968-1973 | Pat Wall | Chris Evans | John Dobbing |
Archive
The origins of the BNA lie in the 1960s, when neursoscence first emerged as a disclipine in its own right. The exact nature and series of events that led to (what was then) to the Brain Research Association are a subject of some discussion, as becomes clear by reading the articles below.
E. Reynolds (2017). The origins of the British Neuroscience Association. Neuroscience 367, pp. 10–14.
doi: 10.1016/J.NEUROSCIENCE.2017.09.057
50 years of neuroscience, by Steven Rose
The Lancet, Volume 385, Issue 9968, 14–20 February 2015, Pages 598–599
DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60224-0
Reply to the Legend of the Black Horse (revisited) by Abi-Rached, JM, SPR Rose, and J Lagnado
British Neuroscience Association Bulletin, 70 (2014) p29
From brain to neuro: the Brain Research Association and the making of British neuroscience 1965–1996, by JM Abi-Rached
J Hist Neurosci, 21 (2012), pp. 189–213
DOI: 10.1080/0964704X.2011.552413
Letter to the Editor and Authors' Response: Reaction to Abi-Rached JM (2012): From Brain to Neuro: The Brain Research Association and the Making of British Neuroscience, 1965–1996. Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 21:189–213) by Robert Balazs & Edward H. Reynolds
J Hist Neurosci, 22 (2013), pp. 199-207
DOI: 10.1080/0964704X.2012.750700
Authors' Response: Of Founding Fathers and History by Joelle M. Abi-Rached & Steven P.R. Rose
J Hist Neurosci, 22 (2013), pp. 208-211
DOI: 10.1080/0964704X.2012.754270