The "Centre d'Investigació de Medicaments" (CIM), started its activities in Barcelona, Spain in 1983, and is linked to the "Institut de Recerca de l Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau".

In collaboration with the Clinical Pharmacology Service of the Hospital and the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics of the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, has conducted a series of activities focused on Human Drug Effects, from both pharmacological and therapeutic perspectives. Among these, special attention has been paid to the initial stage assessment of drug effect in humans, i.e., Phase I Clinical Trials in Healthy Volunteers.

To date more than 200 clinical trials have been performed involving a wide range of pharmacological agents. Most of this activity has been accomplished in collaboration with the Pharmaceutical Industry including tolerability, pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic and bioequivalence studies.

During the last 10 years a relevant part of the research activities has been devoted to the study of drugs acting on the Central Nervous System. These studies have involved the assessment of different aspects of sensory, cognitive and motor processing. Recording of bioelectrical signals such as evoked potentials, quantitative pharmaco-electroencephalography and brain tomography has been incorporated as an additional tool in the study of drug-brain interactions in the waking state. In addition, recently, polisomnographic techniques have also been introduced in order to evaluate brain activity during sleep.

The workload has derived in more than 40 research projects supported by public founds, more than 100 scientific publications and around 240 abstracts presented in different national and international conferences.

Main specific research lines orienting the future include: