AJMONE-MARSAN 157a few years later) generated renown among epileptologists in the United
States and abroad. As a consequence, Henry Gastaut and Earl A. Walker,
respectively president elect and president of the International League
Against Epilepsy in late 1954, recommended that the next Temporal
Lobe Epilepsy Colloquium (following the first one held in Marseilles
in that year) be held at the NIH, hosted and organized by the NINDB.
This took place in the spring of 1957 and the proceedings were pub
lished soon after.^9
Another close associate of mine in the investigation of epilepsy
mechanisms and treatment was John Van Buren. Van Buren had an ex
cellent clinical preparation and a very solid basis in research.^10 Besides
thorough training in neurosurgery with Arthur Eldvidge and Penfield
in Montreal and as a senior fellow at the Lahey Clinic in Boston, he
had also spent an elective year (1949-50) in experimental neurophysiol
ogy with Boris Babkin at the MNI,^11 several months with Jasper in clini
cal electroencephalography, a six-month clerkship in neurology at the
Queen Square Hospital in London, and, after joining the NIH, another
year in basic neuronal physiology (intracellular recording) with Karl
Frank, chief of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology’s Section on Spinal
Cord Physiology. Van Buren also possessed a strong scientific and tech
nical background in both microscopic and gross neuroanatomy, obtain
ing a Ph.D. in this specialty at George Washington University in 1961,
and authoring three important books. Ironically, it was rumored that
later in the course of his career, an unfair criticism was brought against
him by one of the scientific advisors reviewing the activity of his
branch. The advisor apparently suggested that he was too much of a
neuroanatomist. Clinical Associates who were trained with him during
his tenure at the NIH included D. A. Maccubbin, J. G. Ojemann, R. A.
Ratcheson, and N. Mutsuga.
Soon after joining the NINDB, Van Buren and I began to utilize this
invasive method of investigation in combination with the use of cortical
strips or grids whenever justified in the work-up of diagnostically com
plex patients with intractable seizures, who were otherwise potential
candidates for surgery. Part of these results was presented at the above
mentioned 1957 colloquium. The use of depth electrography for both
recording and stimulation in humans had been pioneered in Boston, the