Professor Jacques Paillard died in Toulouse on July 26, 2006. Born in Nemours (France) on March 5, 1920, he dedicated more than 50 years for explaining movement, action, reaction, proprioception and body representation in an attempt to link physiology to cognitive neuroscience.

He has been a pioneer in the foundation of Behavioural Neuroscience in France as a teacher and as the founding director, in 1965, of the CNRS Institute of Neurophysiology and Psychophysiology in Marseille. This Institute was a model for what was to become Cognitive Neuroscience, gathering under one roof researchers studying the brain from a cellular, systems, or higher integrative level of analysis. His own research has centered on sensory motor-integration and perception of body space.  

During the last years he was Professor Emeritus at the University of Aix-Marseille II, continuing an active research programme with Canadian colleagues, studying motor control in deafferented patients.  

Jacques Paillard is a founding member of the EBBS and the Local Organiser of the very first meeting, held in Marseille in 1969. He served as President of the Society from 1971-1972 and again headed the Local Organising Committee for the meeting in Marseille in 1983.  In 2001 he was elected Honorary Member of EBBS.