Preface

The 24th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Sleep Research (JSSR) was held on 12 and 13 June 1999 in Hiroshima, Japan. This meeting consisted of the special guest lecture, the award-winner’s lecture, two symposiums, two workshops, 79 posters and 48 oral presentations. Thanks to every leading speaker of each topic and discussion, we believe this meeting was stimulating and fruitful for all the participants. We make specific mention of the remark of Professor RD Ogilvie from Brock University, Canada, in his special guest lecture entitled Psychophysiology of the sleep onset period. He stressed the importance of future research on psychophysiological aspects of the awake–sleep transition period and put forward the convergent analysis among behavioral, electrophysiological and psychological indices. It was exciting to learn of the psychophysiological experiments of the sleep onset period. Increasing studies of sleep onset have allowed clinicians and researchers in the emerging field of sleep disorders medicine to know that disordered sleep is commonplace, and that sleep disorders nearly always involve complaints of being unable to sleep or being unable to avoid going to sleep. There is growing recognition that psychological functioning is impaired by loss of sleep; the strong relationship between sleepiness and traffic accidents, reduced productivity and increased risk of accidents in the workplace, and lowered quality of daily life have intensified the need for greater understanding of the sleep onset period. We would say that the vigilance task method to evaluate the behavioral arousal as well as the convergent analysis of normal and abnormal processes would play an important role in the future study of sleep. The encouragement prize of JSSR in 1999 which was given to Dr. Y. Koyama at Fukushima Medical College, who presented the award-winning lecture entitled ‘In vivo electrophysiological distinction of histochemically identified cholinergic neurons using extracellular recording and labeling in rat laterodorsal tegmental nucleus’. There were two symposiums entitled ‘Good sleep and good waking’ chaired by Dr. M. Yamamoto and Dr. H. Fukuda, and ‘Pathophysiology and clinical approaches of restless legs syndrome’ chaired by Dr. T. Nozawa and Dr. J. Horiguchi. Two workshops were also held on ‘Sleep apnea in infant’ chaired by Dr. S. Miyazaki and Dr. T. Hashimoto and ‘Application of computers to sleep sciences of today and future’ chaired by Dr. Y. Sugita and Dr. S. Shirakawa. The topics presented in symposiums and workshops were not only of interest to sleep sciences researchers but also are the most exciting clinical development for the last decade. With the sponsorship of the JSSR Educational Committee, the 4th Educational Course of ‘Seminar of Sleep Sciences and Sleep Medicine’ was held in Hiroshima on 11 June 1999. This seminar was organized by Dr. J. Horiguchi to provide the basic and advanced knowledge in the domains of normal sleep and sleep disorders. The participants received five comprehensive lectures and intensive hands-on training of polysomnographic techniques. The selected short original papers presented at the 24th Annual Meeting are published in this special issue of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences as the official issue of the JSSR. The JSSR Academic Publishing Committee accepted manuscripts in the size of two printed pages after a strict reviewing process. Presentations other than oral and poster sessions (i.e. the special guest lecture, the award-winner’s lecture, the symposiums, the workshops and the educational courses) are not included in this issue. For further information, the program and abstracts of the 24th Annual Meeting of the JSSR are available on our official web site of JSSR ( http://www.ashitech.ac.jp/jhome/jssr/gakujutu/1999/sub_index99.html). In closing, we hope that this issue will stimulate much debate among researchers and that our society continues to grow and prosper. GUEST EDITORS Judges Masako Okawa, (Guest Editor-in-Chief) National Institute of Mental Health, NCNP, Ichikawa Yutaka Honda, Neuropsychiatric Research Institute, Tokyo Shojiro Inoué, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo Yasuro Takahashi, Neuropsychiatric Research Institute, Tokyo Referees Kazuhiko Fukuda, Fukushima University, Fukushima Ken-ichi Honma, Hokkaido University, Sapporo Tadao Hori, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima Toshinori Kobayashi, Ashikaga Institute of Technology, Ashikaga Tohru Kodama, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience, Tokyo Yoshimasa Koyama, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima Hitoshi Matsumura, Osaka Medical College, Osaka Mitsuyuki Nakao, Tohoku University, Sendai Tatsuro Ohta, Nagoya University, Nagoya Masaya Segawa, Segawa Neurological Clinic for Children, Tokyo Tetsuo Shimizu, Akita University, Akita Toshiaki Shiomi, Aichi Medical University, Aichi Zenji Shiozawa, Yamanashi Medical College, Yamanashi Makoto Uchiyama, National Institute of Mental Health, NCNP, Ichikawa Naoto Yamada, Shiga University of Medical Science, Shiga

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