Brief history of ISARP

The origins of the International Symposium on Respiratory Psycholphysiology date back to the late 1970s when clinical researchers at London's St Bartholomew's Hospital confronted problems in the measurement and monitoring of breathing patterns in hyperventilating patients.

In 1981, a workship was convened to share information with physiologists, sleep researchers, anesthetists, pediatricians, yoga researchers, and others experienced in this type of clinical measurement. It became obvious during the workshop that the participants from these varied professions had broader interests in common than measurement alone. In the following year, therefore, a second workshop, entitled 'respiratory psycholphysiology', was convened. There had previously been no umbrella group of this type, although there had been earlier meetings in the United States of respiratory physicians and physiologists who were interested in dyspnea and other sensations of breathing.

The second workshop, which added speakers in the format of a symposium, was held under the auspices of the University of Hamburg, and it established a tradition of holding meetings either on the European continent or in Great Britain. Abstracts of all papers presented at the symposia have been published, usually in Biological Psychology . Selected papers from two of the symposia have also appeared in additional publications, the first in a book on the proceedings of the 1987 symposium at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (von Euler and Katz-Salamon, 1988), the second in this special issue of Biofeedback and Self-Regulation (June 1994) on the 1993 symposium at the Welcome trust in London.

The 1993 symposium, hosted by Dr. Lewis Adams, marked the occasion for the formal announcement of the establishment of the International Society for the Advancement of Respiratory Psychophysiology.

Since the establishment of ISARP, annual meetings of the organization have been held in Saint Flour, France (1994); Toronto, Canada (1995); Nijmegen, the Netherlands (1996); Cape Cod, USA (1997); Perpignan, France (1998); Granada, Spain (1999); San Diego, USA (2000); Oxford, United Kingdom (2001); Washington DC, USA (2002); Leuven, Belgium (2003), Princeton, USA (2004); Hamburg, Germany (2005); Newport, USA (2006); Bristol, UK (2007); Ann Arbor, USA (2008); Berlin, Germany (2009); New York, USA (2010); Athens, Greece (2011); Orlando, USA (2012); Leuven, Belgium (2013), and New Brunswick, USA (2014).

The Toronto meeting marked the first time in the history of the International Symposium that meetings were held outside Europe. The practice of alternating the location of meetings between Europe and North America reflects the international character of the Society.