It is a huge honour to be able to introduce Professor Adam Zeman to deliver the 2024 Lord John Walton lecture.

Like many great scientists, Adam’s career has been driven and shaped by a restless intellectual curiosity. It struck me that there are three particular features about Adam’s curiosity that have made his work so influential in neurology both in Britain and internationally, and hence why he is such a worthy choice for this year’s Walton lecture.

1. First Adam has realised that things are always most interesting at their boundaries

As I am sure we would all acknowledge, neurology has changed and grown dramatically over the past 20 years, largely by becoming more collaborative and stepping beyond its traditional heartlands to partner with other disciplines, perhaps most notably psychiatry. At the vanguard of this shift has been Adam Zeman.

Never one to follow conventions, Adam’s journey to neurology took him first, on an Open Scholarship, to Magdalen College, Oxford to study the mind, reading Psychology, Philosophy and Physiology. As a result, he fell in love with the brain, and stayed on for another 5 years to read medicine. After an eclectic series of SHO and Registrar jobs around England, a period at Queen Square and a doctorate in, for him, the unlikely topic of CSF neurochemistry, Adam landed up in Cambridge where, under the tutelage of John Hodges, he discovered the then nascent subspecialty of Cognitive Neurology and became with time one of its keenest champions. From Cambridge, Adam moved to his first consultant post in Edinburgh, where he stayed for nearly 10 years before moving to Exeter to a chair in Cognitive and Behavioural Neurology. In recent years, he has moved back to his beloved Edinburgh, to take up, in his own words, “a freelance phase of life”.

Unusually for a neurologist, Adam’s career has not centred on a particular disease or gene. Instead, his approach has been more like that of a philosopher, who applies his intellectual acumen to a range of areas where fresh perspective and clarity of thought is needed. Adam has straddled masterfully the immaterial fence which separates disorders of the brain and of the mind: tackling subjects as diverse as consciousness, sleep, memory, perception and imagination.

Which brings me to the second principle driving Adam’s curiosity, the realisation that:

2. Patients themselves are often the source of our most interesting (and useful) ideas

It was a patient in Cambridge, for example, who presented with recurrent episodes of profound but self-limiting memory loss which led to Adam’s pioneering work on transient epileptic amnesia, a condition on which I have had the privilege of collaborating with him now for many years and which really ought to be called Zeman’s syndrome. As Adam’s work has shown, TEA is a strikingly stereotyped condition that typically arises in late middle age and is characterised by recurrent episodes of pure amnesia that often occur on waking, are due to focal MTL seizures which respond well to ASM. Perhaps most interesting feature of TEA is the interictal memory profile that patients describe, including accelerated long-term forgetting and remote autobiographical amnesia, things that are difficult to measure but have a profound impact on people’s lives. Adam’s dedication to TEA has been of enormous benefit to patients all over the world, and has also been instrumental in the growing recognition that epilepsy is not just a seizure disorder, but can have a striking impact on cognition in unexpected ways that also have important implications for cognitive neuroscience.

It was another patient, seen in the cognitive clinic in Edinburgh and about whom I am sure we will hear more shortly, who inspired the next chapter in Adam’s intellectual journey, into aphantasia and towards the boundaries of human imagination.

Which brings me to the third principle:

3. If you’ve stumbled on something truly interesting, then everyone will want to know about it

Adam is a passionate and gifted communicator. In clinical circles, this passion and his long standing commitment to the next generation, especially as director for many years of the British Neuropsychiatry Association’s annual teaching weekend, has inspired hundreds of trainees in both neurology and psychiatry to think outside the box and, as a consequence, to become better, more rounded doctors.

But it is perhaps in the public arena that Adam’s gift for communicating really comes into its own. His ability to weave together cutting edge science with insights from the arts and humanities in a very personal and non-threatening way has captured the imagination of the general public, leading to countless appearances in the media and 3 single author books, all thoroughly recommendable.

The first, Consciousness - a users guide, prompted Charles Warlow to say to me that Adam is the cleverest man he knows.

The second, A Portrait of the Brain, brings patient stories to the fore to illustrate the marvels of neurology, from cells to circuits.

The third, The Shape of Things Unseen, is due out January next year. It is published rather appropriately by Bloomsbury - not just the district of London in which we find ourselves this afternoon, but also, being the home of so many great medical, artistic and intellectual institutions, a place that epitomises Adam’s spirit.

Thank you Adam for constantly reminding us of the importance of curiosity, to the benefit of our patients, our specialty and our culture.

It gives me great pleasure to invite Professor Adam Zeman to deliver the 2024 Lord John Walton lecture: “Exploring the mind’s library & the eye’s mind”.

Christopher Butler

I am delighted to have the honour to introduce Professor Joanna Wardlaw as this year’s ABN Walton lecturer. It is a particular pleasure to do so as Joanna has become a close and highly valued collaborator and source of advice over many years.

As far as I am aware Joanna, as a neuroradiologist, is the first non-neurologist to be given this honour. But her career and achievements amply show her major contribuyions to British and International Neurology, specifically in the field of stroke, which make her such a deserving recipient of this award.

Joanna’s field of international renown is cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD). I will just remind you all that this is the commonest known brain disease, causing around 1 in 3 strokes (including a quarter of all ischaemic strokes and most intracerebral haemorrhage, the most disabling type); importantly, cSVD contributes to around 40% of all-cause dementia. Joanna’s work has consistently highlighted this under-researched common disease for which treatments remain limited.

Joanna was educated in Glasgow, Scotland, before studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with a first-class Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in 1979, and Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB) in 1982. Her distinguished career ultimately led to her appointment as Professor of Applied Neuroimaging back at the University of Edinburgh, in 2002. Joanna’s incredibly impressive career spanning a small geographical area is, perhaps aptly, like that of John Walton, who was born, trained, and lived for 93 years within a 50-mile radius in Northumberland during which he travelled the world, became Lord Walton of Detchant, and achieved legendary status in the field of neurology.

Joanna did a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree (awarded 1994) on "the application and verification of non-invasive imaging techniques in the investigation and treatment of acute ischaemic stroke". She initiated one of the first randomised controlled trials of thrombolysis in acute ischaemic stroke in 1990, and subsequently led the Cochrane Collaboration on thrombolysis in ischaemic stroke and then neuroimaging for IST-3 (International Stroke Trial 3). She has since led successful multicentre RCTs and international collaborations in stroke and vascular cognitive impairment.

In 1998, Joanna Wardlaw established, and still leads, a brain imaging research programme in Edinburgh, which is now part of the pan-Scotland SINAPSE collaboration. Joanna has developed a world-leading research programme into the causes and effects of cerebral small vessel disease on the brain, in particular the role of the blood brain barrier failure and endothelial dysfunction in ageing, lacunar stroke, and dementia. Her work has, importantly, been translated into clinical trials including the LACI-2 trial in lacunar stroke, which showed that isosorbide mononitrate and cilostazol are safe and may reduce recurrent stroke, dependence, and cognitive impairment; a finding now being investigated in larger trials. Joanna’s impact on stroke has been immeasurable and recognised by many previous honours.

In 2005, she was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci). In 2008, she was awarded the President's Medal of the British Society of Neuroradiologists. In 2011 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE). She was made a Fellow of the American Heart Association in 2014. In the 2016 New Year Honours, she was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) "for services to neuroimaging and clinical science". In 2018, she received both the Karolinska Stroke Lifetime Achievement Award and the American Stroke Associations' William M. Feinberg Award for Excellence in Clinical Stroke. Joanna has approaching 1000 publications, with an H index of 113. Many are high-profile including Neuroimaging Standards for Small Vessel Disease and its contribution to ageing and neurodegeneration (STRIVE) published in Lancet Neurology 2013 and updated in 2023.

Joanna is not only an outstanding clinician scientist but also an excellent communicator of complex concepts, including engaging with the public and people with stroke. I have personally been fortunate to have an opportunity to learn from and collaborate with Joanna over more than 15 years. I can testify to her astonishing and endless energy, enthusiasm and focus in continuing to advance the field of cerebral small vessel disease. She has been a strong, eloquent, and vocal advocate for its role of small vessel disease in stroke, cognitive impairment, and dementia, always working closely with neurologists and other stroke physicians. There is no doubt that her work has substantially improved our understanding and treatment of people with cerebrovascular disease. Joanna is therefore a very worthy awardee of the ABN Walton Lecture, in recognition of her major contribution to British and International Neurology. Without further delay, Joanna, the floor is yours…

David Werring

I cannot really think of any aspect of my own journey in FND that has not been influenced in some way by Jon. And I am sure that is the same for so many of you here, people nationally and internationally, doctors and allied health professionals, from people who are established in the field to people who are yet to start but have had a spark kindled by Jon that is about to launch them on a journey into the fascinating and humbling world of FND.

My first contact with Jon was soon after I started my NIHR Clinician Scientist Fellowship investigating the pathophysiology of what we were then calling psychogenic movement disorders. What I hadn’t realised at that time was that Jon had already helped me on my path as he was one of the reviewers of my grant and I am sure that his support was critical to it being awarded. But my first conscious contact with Jon was when we wrote a paper together for Neurology about showing patients with FND their clinical signs. Jon came up with a great title, calling it: “trick or treat”. The paper was designed to be an antidote to the typical secret “gotcha” looks to the assembled students and fellows when the tremor stops with distraction or the paralysed leg bursts briefly into life with contralateral hip flexion, followed by a swift dismissal that there’s “nothing neurologically wrong”. Instead, Jon had been showing these clinical signs to patients for years as a fantastic bedside method of explaining that there was something wrong, and that FND was the only logical culprit. I think I had mentioned to Jon that I had started to do something similar and he suggested that we write the paper together.

The reason for telling you this little story, is that the process behind the production of this short paper revealed to me several of Jon’s best qualities, qualities which shine through in much more important aspects of his work. There was the immediate nurturing of someone just starting out in the field, when he really didn’t need me to write the paper at all. There was the collaborative process of planning and writing itself, where Jon was immediately completely engaged and unexpectedly (for me at that time) completely driven to get it right. Perhaps I had the same bias that many of us might have that the more one moves upwards through the nervous system, especially reaching this interface between the automatic machinery of the body and the conscious experience of it, and beyond that to thoughts and feelings, the more, well, mushy the subject becomes and therefore by implication the people who practice it, are expected to be softer, less rigorous, less scientific. Instead, Jon was hyper-critical, exacting and razor sharp. This incisive and fundamentally serious commitment to the topic and therefore to all the people who have FND is something that is incredibly humbling to witness, from this little paper to all the hundreds of pieces of work that make up Jon’s output in the peer reviewed and lay literature.

Recently, I was preparing a talk about the history of FND, and had the opportunity to track through the timeline of Jon’s publications. What struck me was both the crystal clarity of thinking, the logical inevitability of the steps he took but also the passion and absolute self-belief that made this happen. I remember well Jon telling me about submitting one of his first posters on FND to the ABN, where the poster was located in some dark and dusty corner, in a miscellaneous section, far from the safe and secure and neurologically legitimate world of movement disorders, dementia and such-like. I was struck by how lonely this would have felt to me, and therefore how fierce the passion in Jon’s character has kept him building the critical foundations for this area of neurological practice. Each paper a brick in the wall that has grown the legitimacy of this area of medicine and therefore the legitimacy of the people unlucky enough to have this diagnosis.

Nowadays one might come in fresh to this topic, perhaps as a first year neurology registrar just starting specialist training and wonder what all the fuss is about. We have national and international patient organisations, we have a an international FND society, we have FND regularly featured at conferences, we even have questions on FND in the neurology exit exam. But my point is that this apparent normality with regard to FND is a seismic shift from just a few years ago and that it has happened at all is fundamentally down to Jon. Thinking back to my time spent in neurology clinics in the early 2000’s the idea that a patient would own this diagnosis enough to volunteer to a health professional: “I have FND”, would be truly mind blowing. I still get a certain thrill (and a jolt of emotion) when I hear a patient say to me something like: “Oh, my functional seizures have been really difficult recently” or “My functional tremor has got a lot better with the treatment I had”, because those sorts of statements reveal a basic state of self-efficacy and ownership. We’re used to this in people with other causes of neurological symptoms, but this is so different from the experience so many people with FND had before Jon’s work. So, this apparent normality, growing year by year, is in fact one of the most shocking and abnormal things to happen in neurology and psychiatry for many decades. And Jon is the lynch pin in all of this, building the next generation of FND-interested neurologists, psychiatrists and allied health professionals, pushing the boundaries of diagnostic and pathophysiological understanding, fighting the good fight on social media where others (like myself) fear to tread, pushing for the next normal – like building better evidence for treatment effectiveness or getting people with FND equitable access to a care pathway.

As I am sure Jon will explain, this has not been and nor is it currently, a solo journey. Charles Warlow and Mike Sharpe were key early influences, providing that wonderful realisation, like a sudden jolt of oxygen at high altitude, that the successful interdigitation of neurology and psychiatry provides the perspective that is so often missing when either speciality works alone. This pairing was then replicated by Jon in his long-running collaboration and friendship with consultant neuropsychiatrist Alan Carson. Together they have built an internationally respected and revered powerhouse of neuropsychiatric research and clinical practice.

So, Jon, I could not be more honoured to introduce you today, and I hope that you do have the odd moment to step back, breathe, put aside your self-effacing nature for a second, and to recognise the incredible contribution you have made to medical practice, to scientific understanding, and to your many colleagues and mentees. But above even these things, I think your biggest contribution has been to all to the people who, through no fault of their own, found themselves with problems that just didn’t fit into the boxes we have constructed in neurology, psychiatry, psychology and society at large. You have provided something they have never had before – a bit of normality, a bit of humanity, a bit of hope. These may seem like small things, but for those of us who know something about medical history, philosophy and the fundamentally human gap that exists between having a disease and being ill, we are all in awe of you and everything you have achieved.

Dr Mark Edwards

It is a great honour and pleasure for me to introduce Professor Roger Barker, our speaker for the Lord John Walton Lecture this year. Roger shares many attributes with Lord Walton: his curiosity and enthusiasm for neuroscience, his expertise as a clinical neurologist and his passion for teaching and education. They also shared an interest in Parkinson’s disease. Lord Walton made a major contribution to the clinical care of Parkinson’s patients, served as Vice President of Parkinson’s UK and was a strong advocate in Parliament for improved Parkinson’s disease services. Roger is one of our foremost movement disorder neurologists who is internationally renowned for his contribution to understanding the heterogeneity of both Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases, and a world leader in the development of novel therapies for these disorders. But although these two great neurologists have skills and interests in common, in some respects their approach may have been rather different. Roger’s laid-back style is truly unique, including his propensity for strolling around the Brain Repair Centre barefooted, and his tendency to pace around the room during his consultations to ensure that he achieves his daily step count, much to the amusement of his patients!

Roger’s academic abilities were clear from an early stage in his career. He won a scholarship to Oxford, and achieved the highest first class degree in Physiological Sciences in the University. After training in clinical medicine at St Thomas’ and completing his house jobs, he worked as registrar in general medicine, before seeing the light and taking up a PhD fellowship to study intracerebral cell grafts under James Fawcett and Steve Dunnett in Cambridge. This launched a formidable research career. He went on to gain an MRC Clinician Scientist award to further his research into the therapeutic potential of cell transplants for neurodegenerative diseases, and he established a thriving translational research group in Cambridge, where he was appointed as Professor of Clinical Neurosciences in 2011. In 2015, he was elected to the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences. His research output has been truly prodigious with over 400 original research papers, 200 reviews and book chapters, and nearly 50,000 citations.

Alongside his academic commitments, Roger is a fantastic clinician with great compassion, who is never too busy to answer calls and e-mails from his patients. In addition to his contribution to the general neurology service at Addenbrooke’s, he leads the East of England regional Huntington’s disease service, providing clinical care to over 300 HD patients, and he has established a Parkinson’s research clinic which has engaged over 2000 PD patients in research over the past 20 years. He is committed to furthering public understanding of his science through his numerous lectures and positions, which range from presidency of the local branch of Parkinson’s UK to vice presidency of the World Parkinson’s Coalition.

Roger’s impact in the field of movement disorders has been, and continues to be, phenomenal. But it is perhaps through his teaching and mentoring that he might ultimately make his greatest impact. Over 30 neuroscientists and clinicians have gained PhDs under his supervision, many of whom have gone on to highly prestigious positions around the globe and now lead their own research groups. Countless medical students and neurology trainees have benefited from his wisdom and unique teaching style, both through his lectures and his numerous textbooks. His enthusiasm and passion for his work are truly infectious, and he has inspired many, myself included, to pursue a career in academic neurology. I am sure he will similarly inspire you today as he delivers his lecture, and I am delighted and honoured to be able to introduce him.

Caroline Williams-Gray

I am delighted to introduce the third John Walton award recipient, Nigel Leigh. This award was intended for 2020 but was delayed because of the pandemic.

Like Lord Walton, who was moved by the effect of muscular dystrophy on the patients and families in his care, Nigel Leigh has been driven by the devastating impact of a greatly feared diagnosis, motor neuron disease, on patients and families.

Following training in London, he spent 2 years as Lecturer in Medicine, and Neurology Specialist at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, before returning as senior registrar at Atkinson Morley’s and St George’s Hospitals. He completed a PhD with Professor David Marsden at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, and was appointed to the University Chair of Neurology at King’s in 1989, focussing on motor neuron disease – until then an overlooked “hopeless” condition. Working with patient advocates in the fledgling Motor Neurone Disease Association, he helped set up the first meeting of what was to become the premier international conference for MND. He then established one of the first multidisciplinary motor neuron disease clinics in the world, now a standard model of care across the UK and beyond and providing hope to the one in every 300 of us who will develop MND.

Among his many contributions, he was among the first to observe ubiquitinated inclusions in anterior horn cells in MND, now known to contain TDP43, and coined the term ‘skein-like’. Soon afterwards, in the 1990s, he showed a clinical and pathological relationship between frontotemporal dysfunction and motor neuron disease, something that was not accepted as mainstream until the discovery of genetic overlap between frontotemporal dementia and motor neuron disease in 2006.

He was key to developing and trialling Riluzole, the first drug to be shown to modify any neurodegenerative disease, and helped develop the established diagnostic criteria for motor neuron disease.

Nigel Leigh has supervised or co-supervised countless research fellows, many caring for people with MND nationally and internationally, and all with the skill in communication and compassion he has taught them.

His impact on motor neuron disease worldwide cannot be overemphasized. He has received The Forbes Norris Award of the International Alliance of ALS/MND Associations, the Erb-Duchenne Prize of the German Neuromuscular Society, and The Sheila Essey Prize of the American Academy of Neurology. Since 2003 he has been a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Outside neurology he enjoys fly-fishing, birdwatching, walking with the Samburu in Northern Kenya, and beekeeping. He comes from a neurological family - his father described Leigh’s disease - and hopes some of his family may take up the family tendon hammer in due course.

It is my honour and privilege to introduce Professor Nigel Leigh for the 2020 John Walton Award.

Professor Ammar Al-Chalabi

It is a great pleasure to introduce our speaker for this, the second John Walton lecture. Lord Walton was known not only for his acumen as a neurologist but also for his charity and humanity. Qualities that he shares with our speaker this evening, Simon Shorvon. They share many other qualities, their rigour, their attention to detail and their love of cricket and classical music. They also both experienced their fair share of pain: Lord Walton as a Newcastle United supporter, and Simon Shorvon as a Fulham supporter, it is surprising that someone who is so kind to his patients is so cruel to himself.

Simon spent his youth in London under the care of, not one but two, psychiatrists. His father, Joe Shorvon joined the staff of the National Hospital in 1947 until his premature death in 1961, and his mother worked at the South London Hospital for Women and Children, and Holloway Prison. In a way, it was natural that Simon should go from City of London School into medicine, studying at Trinity College Cambridge and then St Thomas’s Hospital.

After this, Simon was the only applicant for one of the busiest house jobs, a house job in neurosurgery at Manchester Royal Infirmary, where he quickly decided to embark on a career in neurology. Simon’s epilepsy career began later under the tutelage of Ted Reynolds at Kings College London. There, Simon published his first paper on epilepsy in the BMJ in 1977, entitled “Unnecessary polypharmacy for epilepsy”. This and his subsequent work at Kings College London still play an influential role in the principles underlying our current treatment of epilepsy.

Simon moved to the National Hospital in 1979 and was appointed Senior Lecturer and Consultant in 1983. He set up the epilepsy research group, which grew from one member, himself, to now over 100. He has made critical contributions to research in epilepsy, with over 500 publications, in numerous areas, including epidemiology, genetics, MRI, and clinical pharmacology and his research has informed health care policy not only in the UK but also in resource poor countries. His monograph on status epilepticus and the international colloquium on status epilepticus that he started and organises have influenced and driven research in this topic around the world. He is one of the major international figures in epilepsy research and has received numerous prizes and awards including lifetime achievement awards in UK, Europe, USA and India.

But it is not only his research that sets him apart, but also his teaching. He has been the principal PhD supervisor of over 20 doctors who are now consultant neurologists with an interest in epilepsy, 6 of whom hold university chairs in UK, USA and Australia.

More recently Simon has turned his considerable skills to the history of medicine. He has written on the history of epilepsy, the history of the Royal College of Physicians and this year, he co-authored, with Alistair Compston, the definitive history of Queen Square.

However, Simon’s interests extend well beyond neurology and he very much spans CP Snow’s two cultures. Almost 50 years ago, Simon completed his Part II (BA) in Cambridge on history of art. Since then, he has written about the printing press founded by Lucien Pissarro, eldest son of Camille. We also discovered in 2000 on Radio 3 that his private passions include Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Sofia Gubaidulina; I am glad to say that there was some light relief with the twelve-tone music of Alban Berg and some free form jazz from John Coltrane.

It is a measure of the person that Simon was and is, almost certainly, dreading this citation; not because I would bring up any embarrassing moments (and there are a few) but because his modesty would not permit him to enjoy this well-deserved panegyric.

It is a great honour and gives me great pleasure to introduce Professor Simon Shorvon to give the ABN John Walton Lecture “British neurosurgery before the NHS; its skirmishes with neurology and eventual emancipation.”

Professor Matthew Walker

Dear Colleagues

It gives me great pleasure to introduce our speaker for this, the first John Walton Lecture. The ABN is extremely grateful to Lord Walton’s children, Ann, Chris and Judy for their kind endorsement of this annual lecture.

There is much that could be said about the much missed Lord Walton, and indeed about another knight of the realm Professor Sir Doug Turnbull, but time is short. So to quote a well-known phrase: “We will be brief”.

As Professor David Bates, wrote in his obituary for Lord Walton in the Journal of Neurological Sciences:

“John Nicholas Walton was born in Rowlands Gill, County Durham, on the 16th September 1922 and, as Lord Walton of Detchant, died on the 21st April 2016 at Belford, Northumberland. The distance between the two is about 50 miles. In that 50 mile journey, and those 93 years, John fulfilled a remarkable lifetime of achievement, travelled the world and achieved legendary status in the field of neurology.”

Three of Lord Walton’s passions in his lifetime journey were Newcastle, neuromuscular disease, and the ABN. So it is entirely fitting that the ABN and meetings committee selected Doug Turnbull to give this first lecture. Doug is a Newcastle graduate through and through; he was a trainee who worked for Lord Walton as a research registrar in the Newcastle General Hospital Muscular Dystrophy laboratories and is an outstanding clinical academic who benefitted from Lord Walton’s crucial and strong support for the passage of the Mitochondrial Donation Regulations in both houses of Parliament.

Professor David Burn

It is a great honour and privilege for me to give this citation for Gordon Plant whose achievements can be summarised, quite succinctly, as ‘an outstanding clinician, researcher and teacher”

Gordon went up to Downing College, Cambridge in 1971 as an Exhibitioner and left as a Scholar in 1974 with a First Class Honours degree in Physiology.

He started his neurology apprenticeship at Queen Square and was SHO to some of the giants of neurology in their day - Chris Earl, Roman Kocen and Roger Bannister.

He was subsequently a Wellcome Trust research associate at The Physiology Unit in Cambridge and was awarded his MD on “Visual function in optic neuritis" in 1987, thus starting out his career in Neuro-ophthalmology.

In 1991, after a year in San Francisco on a MRC Travel Fellowship where he studied ‘Visual motion perception in brain damaged patients’, Gordon was appointed Consultant Neurologist to 3 hospitals – The National, St Thomas’ and Moorfields Eye Hospital. In the latter appointment as Neurologist to Moorfields Eye Hospital, he was following in the august footsteps of Chris Earl and Ian MacDonald.

Apart from his reputation as an excellent clinician, his research output has been prodigious, having published over 300 papers, but the first two and one of the most recent on his CV have the best titles:

“Nasal field loss in kittens reared with convergent squint - nucleus neurophysiological and morphological studies on the lateral geniculate nucleus1” in the Journal of Physiology,

“Metronidazole in smelly tumours2” in the Lancet, and

“Transient Smartphone ‘blindness’” in the NEJM in 2016

However, if you look at his list of publications the topics covered range from Neuro-ophthalmology and MS, obviously, but also he was a first author in a Brain paper in 1990 on Familial amyloid angiopathy which was followed by numerous papers on the subject; Strachan’s syndrome with PK Thomas; with his long standing affiliations in Tanzania and the DR of Congo, there have been publications on Konzo (a tropical spastic paraparesis due to cassava). If you think he is taking his foot off the gas after the age of 60 years you would be wrong – in 2016, he had at least 10 publications.

Gordon also has a National and international reputation for his teaching skills – witness the audience numbers when he is chairing Gower’s and especially when he is chairing the Special Interest Group breakfast meetings in Neuro-ophthalmology at every ABN meeting with people virtually hanging from the rafters. He makes neuro-ophthalmology look so easy - which I suppose is the marque of a true Grand Master of his métier. As a consequence of this reputation, he has held numerous visiting professorships and given named lectures all over the world including Sweden, Thailand and Australia. Next year he will be Visiting Professor at the Universite Paris Cinq de Rene Descartes (previously known as the Sorbonne).

However, despite all these laudations (and I could go on about his close involvement as advisor to the DVLA and the fact that he has been Editor in Chief of the Journal of Neuro-ophthalmology since 2008) Gordon’s greatest achievement has been to introduce, develop and publicise Neuro-ophthalmology as a neurological sub-specialty to the current generation of Neurologists and Registrars both in the UK and internationally.

So, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Dr Gordon Plant to give the ABN Autumn Lecture entitled “The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness of John Keats”.

Dr Hadi Manji

¹ Ikeda H, Plant G T, Tremain K (1977): Nasal field loss in kittens reared with convergent squint - nucleus neurophysiological and morphological studies on the lateral geniculate nucleus. Journal of Physiology.

²Ashford R F U, Plant G T, et al (1980): Metronidazole in smelly tumours. The Lancet (i) 874 – 875.

³Ali Alim-Marvasti, Wei Bi, Omar A. Mahroo, John L. Barbur, Gordon T. Plant (2016):Transient Smartphone ‘blindness”, NEJM.

Peter Sandercock graduated from Oxford in 1975 and then headed up the M6 where his interest in neurology was kindled during an attachment with Ed Hutchinson and Jim Heron in Stoke. He then continued northwards completing his neurology training in Manchester and Liverpool.

However, it was his return to Oxford in 1981 that laid the foundations of his future academic career. Under Charles Warlow’s supervision, Peter set up the Oxfordshire Community Stroke Project, the first proper epidemiological study of stroke in the UK and the first in the world to utilise CT scanning. Large clinical trials in vascular disease were also coming of age and based next door to the OCSP in the Radcliffe Infirmary were the UK TIA Aspirin and European Carotid Surgery Trials, whilst just round the corner were Richard Doll and Richard Peto. Then in 1987 Peter was the Visiting Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University where he acquired the skills required for the emerging specialty of evidence based medicine.

Peter moved to Edinburgh as Senior Lecturer in 1987, became Reader in 1992, and Professor of Medical Neurology in 1999. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2001. His list of publications, research grants, trainees, clinical trial committees, national and international appointments is prodigious by anyone’s standard, but I would highlight the following :

As the co-ordinating editor of the Cochrane Collaboration Stroke Review Group from 1998-2011, Peter ensured that stroke medicine was at the forefront of evidence-based care, and as Chief Investigator of the International Stroke Trials, he put UK neurology at the centre of a huge collaboration which has transformed acute stroke treatment worldwide. No one has done more to banish the nihilism that previously over-shadowed the treatment of patients with acute stroke but also no one has done more to nurture an infrastructure, both human and physical, which will continue to produce research of the highest quality for years to come. In recognition of this, in 2010 Peter received the University of Edinburgh Chancellor’s Award for Research. Finally, as a member of the Board of Directors of the World Stroke Association since its inception in 2008, Peter has been one of the catalysts for improving the care of patients with stroke in developing countries for which he received the WSO Presidents Award for Services to Stroke in 2012. But perhaps more tellingly, the huge number of attendees who travelled from all over the world for his festschrift earlier this year was testament to the importance people attach to his friendship and advice.

Therefore, it gives me great pleasure to invite Professor Peter Sandercock to give the ABN Autumn Lecture entitled “Stroke treatment: past, present and future”.

Dr John Bamford

Clare Fowler was educated at Wycombe Abbey school, and then qualified at the Middlesex Hospital in 1973.

Her neurological career began in earnest in 1976 as SHO at Queen Square to Chris Earle, Roman Kocen and Roger Bannister, and two years later she obtained her MSc in neurophysiology at UCL.

From 1981 she worked increasingly on clinical neurophysiology.

Her interest in Uro-Neurology had begun in collaboration with the urologist Roger Kirby, their first paper in 1983 in the British Journal of Urology being on non-obstructive detrusor failure, and she assisted with his thesis on MSA, the start of her ongoing keen interest in this disease.

In 1987 she was appointed as consultant neurophysiologist to the National Hospital, the Middlesex and Bart’s. She established the first Department of Uro-Neurology in the UK, and also in the world, at Queen Square. As a clinical neurophysiologist, she preferred this title to the alternative of Neuro-Urology. In 2001 Clare was appointed to a personal chair in Uro-Neurology at UCL Institute of Neurology

The impact and clinical importance of her work in this area cannot be overemphasised.

She trained 18 urological research fellows, 15 of whom were awarded higher degrees.

She has published three books, 83 book chapters, and 219 refereed articles. Her expertise and teaching have been widely sought, and she has given over 350 invited lectures in 33 countries.

She has studied and treated patients with diabetes, MS, HIV, Parkinson’s, MSA and PSP, among others.

Investigations that she developed and applied include bladder muscle biopsy and histochemical studies and external sphincter EMG. Together with UK and International colleagues such as Derek Griffiths and Chet de Groat in Pittsburgh, among others, with the use of fMRI and PET techniques, she has elucidated the currently accepted working model of neurological control of voiding and continence.

Most importantly, she has pioneered a succession of treatments that have improved the symptoms and quality of life of countless neurological patients with urogenital problems.

These include intravesical capsaicin and vanilloids, sildenafil, botulinum toxin injections, and electrical stimulation of sacral roots (“sacral neuromodulation”).

Clare has also achieved eponymous recognition for her description in 1985 of Fowler’s syndrome, a condition causing hitherto unexplained urinary retention in young women, often associated with polycystic ovaries and with a characteristic sphincter EMG pattern.

In 2010 Clare was the second Neurologist ever to be awarded the St Peter’s Medal by the British Association of Urological Surgeons. In 2010 she was made CBE for services to Uro-Neurology, and in 2013 received a lifetime achievement award from the American Society of Urodynamics.

She has served on the boards of six medical charities, particularly the MSA Trust which is close to her heart and of which she is now Chairman. She has been on the editorial boards of six journals and, among many other Trust positions, was Caldicott Guardian for UCLH for a decade and Deputy Medical Director for three years. Nationally and Internationally she has worked with numerous organisations as Chair, Secretary or Member of committees and advisory boards, including as Chair of the Clinical Autonomic Research Society, NICE member, and as Associate Member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons, whom she has taught when not to operate on patients with PD or MSA!

Clare retired from full-time clinical work in 2010, and fully in 2012, leaving her department in the very capable hands of neurologist Janesh Panicker.

In addition to all these achievements, Clare has other strings to her bow, or should I say rotary valves to her brass. She plays the French Horn, drives a Porsche, keeps bees and rings church bells. She has Level 3 Diplomas in Horticulture from the RHS, and a “top student” award from Merrist Wood where she studied. She and her husband Peter have a lovely garden in Surrey that they open for the NGS in June. She is now writing a book on Pharmacopoiea Londinensis of 1618. Most recently, she has begun yet another career and is about to start training to become a Lay Reader in the Church of England.

As you can see, Clare has had a full and very productive career that has hugely enhanced the health and quality of life of others, and I am sure you will agree that she is perfectly qualified to give this year’s ABN Autumn Lecture.

Professor Niall Quinn