Abstract
On the occasion of Professor Jes Olesen's 60-year anniversary, on 9 September 2001, a scientific symposium will be held in Copenhagen. This festschrift includes the papers presented at this symposium. Jes Olesen, has been a leading figure in international headache research for more than two decades and in addition played a major role in the creation of brain-dedicated organizational networks in Europe. The topics for the papers have been selected as areas in headache research where Jes Olesen has made major contributions to our current knowledge about headache. They illustrate a very broad approach to the study of headache, from basic science to clinical work.
Jes Olesen founded the Acute Headache Clinic in Copenhagen in 1976 and from that time headache research, in all its aspects, flourished in Denmark under his inspiring leadership. Thus, he has initiated and supervized 11 defended doctoral dissertations and 11 PhD dissertations on headache and pain. Jes Olesen has published 222 papers on headache in refereed journals and has edited or written 21 books, among which The Headaches, first and second editions, is an internationally acknowledged reference volume. The creation of The International Headache Society's classification system, initiated by Professor Jes Olesen and compiled under his chairmanship, became an important milestone in scientific study of headaches.
The annual International Headache Research Seminars in Copenhagen (published as Frontiers in Headache Research), which Jes Olesen conceived and started in 1991, have been an inspiring meeting point for clinicians and basic scientists. With his enormous working capacity he has also been heavily involved in the leadership of many international societies, especially The European Federation of Neurological Societies (EFNS). Jes Olesen was the President of the International Headache Society from 1993 to 1995 and has been President of EFNS since 1995. With this festschrift we want to describe some of the important achievements that Jes Olesen has contributed to and to illustrate that Jes Olesen is a leading scientist who has brought science into headache research.