It was founded in 1951 by Jacob Chandy, Balasubramaniam Ramamurthi, S. T. Narasimhan, and Baldev Singh, who together have been credited to be pioneers in development of epilepsy surgery in India.

On 25 October 1969, the society registered itself with the Charity Commissioner, Public Trusts Registration Office, Greater Bombay Region (No.

[7] In 1977, the society formed four Working Groups to deal with Medical Education and Training, Research priorities, Manpower requirements and development of Services, Community Programme, and Instrumentation along with two new sub-sections, Neurophysiology and Electroencephalography.

[13] List of presidents of NSI[14] In 2008, the society instituted a Lifetime Achievement Award and as of 2014[update] following 21 recipients have been awarded; S. N. Bhagwati, H. M. Dastur, Prakash Narain Tandon, and Noshir Wadia in 2008, Sanatan Rath and Krishnamoorthy Srinivas in 2009, A. K. Banerji, V. S. Dave, and J. S. Chopra in 2010, R. Marthanda Varma and G. N. N. Reddy in 2011, Anupam Das Gupta and B. S. Das in 2012, B. J. Damany, V. K. Kak, and G. M. Taori in 2013 and P. S. Ramani, G. Arjun Das, S. Kalyanraman, T. S. Kanaka, and Ashru K. Banerjee in 2014[15] The award is conferred only on the life members of the society above the age of 75 years with the significant contribution to the development of Neurosciences in India and is presented during the inaugural function of the annual conference.

[9] Various individuals who have been associated with the society as honorary members include John A Simpson, John Walton, Baron Walton of Detchant, Theodore Rasmussen, Lindsay Simon, Majid Samii, Tetsuo Kanno, Balasubramaniam Ramamurthi, Jacob Chandy, and T. K.