An inaugural conference on ‘The Social Brain’ will be held at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria, Egypt from 24–27 April 2002.

Further information may be obtained from: Congrex Göteborg AB, PO Box 5078, SE-402 22 Göteborg, Sweden; fax +46 3181 8225; www.congrex.com/socialbrain

The report of Prudic and colleagues (2001, 31, pp. 929–934) on the results of a mailed questionnaire survey of ECT practices at a sample of New York City Metropolitan area hospitals is in the best tradition of professional self-evaluation, as exemplified by the influential survey conducted by Pippard & Ellam (1981) in the United Kingdom.

We thank Dr Abrams and Dr Fink for their comments on our article, ‘Electroconvulsive therapy practices in the community’ (Prudic et al. 2001). The major point of our paper was that there was considerable heterogeneity in the nature of ECT practices employed in hospitals in the New York City metropolitan region. Neither Dr Abrams nor Dr Fink disputes this, as the evidence was straight forward.