In looking at the photo of the members of the Neuropsychiatric Research Council at the Medical Research Council it is sobering to think that very few would still be alive. They would have to be about 87 or older to still be alive. One would hope that some of their studies had a benefit in the alleviation in mental desease. Dr Alec Coppen was born in 1923 and died on 15 March 2019 He was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and acted as director of the Medical Research Council Unit for Neuropsychiatric Research in Epsom, England, until 1988.He discovered the e role of serotonin in the pathogenesis of depression. His seminal paper in the Lancet 1963 showed that tryptophan markedly potentiated the antidepressant action of MAOIs (Monoamine oxidase Inhibitors). He pursued the serotonin theory, conducting numerous studies, including studies of serotonin metabolites in post-mortem brains of depressed suicides that culminated in his 1967 paper in the British Journal of Psychiatry on the biochemistry of affective disorders that became a citation classic and made him a much-honoured member of the international group of psychopharmacologists and biological psychiatrists, the CINP (Collegium Internationale Psychopharmacologicum He published over 500 papers and seven books on various studies of the biology of affective disorders. His other major contribution to the psychopharmacology of mood disorders was the establishment of the Lithium Clinic at West Park Hospital (in a chapter for a volume on the history of CINP, he wrote: “One lesson we learned is that simply prescribing treatment is not effective”). He conducted the first placebo-controlled trial of the effectiveness of lithium salts in the prophylaxis of recurrent mood disorders, culminating in the discovery of lithium’s unique anti-suicidal effects concurrently with two German research groups in Berlin and Dresden. He trialed the optimum lithium dosage, establishing its minimum effective dose for prophylaxis. He studied its adverse effects on renal and thyroid functions to establish standards for safe medical practice. His last paper was a review of the effectiveness of lithium in the long-term treatment of unipolar (recurrent) depression in 2017. Alec often talked about the many letters he received from patients and their families thanking him for his excellent care years after he retired. He established the MRC Neuropsychiatry Unit at West Park Hospital in 1959, which he directed until he retired in 1988. The one treatment for depression which was astoundingly effective was Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT). Patients would change from a catatonic stupor to mildly manic after a few treatments. It went out of favour due to the film One flew over the cuckoos nest and because of its adverse affect on long term memory.
Members of the medical Research Council Neuropshyciatric Center Carshalton.
Dr Coppen is the third from left in the front. Dr Vrba is far right in the front.
EMC books 