I remember being amazed by my uncle. He has arthritis in his knees and as a small child I was fascinated by his ‘psychic knees’. And by ‘psychic’ I am really describing the situation where he would look at me and knowingly state, “It’s going to rain…my knees are aching.” And then it would! How did his knees know? What aspects of … [Read more...]
The moral hazard of whiplash
January 31, 2012 By 17 Comments
A whole edition of Spine was recently dedicated to whiplash associated disorders (WAD) (Vol 36 Number 25S). One paper by Cote and Soklaridis (1) caught my attention. They warn that health professionals should be aware of the danger of iatrogenesis during the early stages of WAD. According to Wikipedia the term iatrogenesis means brought forth by a … [Read more...]
More on body awareness and chronic pain
January 27, 2012 By 16 Comments
Evidence has been accumulating that shows that people with chronic pain have modifications in body awareness. For example patients suffering from CRPS express feelings of foreignness towards their painful body part, distorted sense of size and shape, and difficulty determining the position of the affected limb (e.g., Lewis, Kersten, McCabe, … [Read more...]
The development of the Canadian Physiotherapy Pain Science Division
January 24, 2012 By 6 Comments
The Pain Science Division (PSD) of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association (CPA) was founded in 2008, through the dedicated work of a small group of Canadian PTs. Diane Jacobs brought Dave Walton, Nick Matheson, Sebastian Asselbergs, Eric Matheson and me together, initially forming the Canadian Physiotherapy Pain Science Group(CPPSG). In 2005 we … [Read more...]
Maltreated children show same pattern of brain activity as combat soldiers
January 20, 2012 By 1 Comment
We have recently found that children exposed to family violence show the same pattern of activity in their brains as soldiers exposed to combat. This study, which can be downloaded from the journal Current Biology, included 43 children scanned using an fMRI scanner. 20 children who had been exposed to documented violence at home were compared with … [Read more...]
TNF-a: the scroundrel that can smile and smile
January 17, 2012 By 3 Comments
Glial cells keep appearing everywhere I look. No, I have not been shrunken by some Rick Moranis-like character and made to wander around the body (a reference to “Honey, I shrunk the kids”)! But, I have been wandering around the pages of journals, ever-so-slowly trying to get a grasp of how the nervous and immune systems talk to each-other. … [Read more...]
Luke Parkitny talks CRPS at BiM
January 13, 2012 By 9 Comments
Luke is a PhD student at Neuroscience Research Australia researching some of the factors that play a role in the development of complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). Luke joins the Body in Mind team with a background of clinical practice and research in Western Australia. He has rapidly cultivated an interest in all things pain and has very … [Read more...]
The rubber hand illusion is stronger in people with schizophrenia
January 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment
In our paper in PNAS a couple of years ago, in which we showed that the RHI is associated with a drop in skin temperature of the ‘replaced’ hand, we proposed the idea that the result is relevant to a range of psychiatric and neurological disorders (check out the table we put in as supplementary info: Table S1. Clinical conditions … [Read more...]
First impressions do count! Especially if you’re stressed.
January 6, 2012 By 8 Comments
We humans are a judgemental lot. We make spontaneous personality trait inferences based on the behaviour of others almost every day. Think about that person that you saw throw rubbish out their car window – you probably immediately thought of that person as selfish or inconsiderate. These first impressions may not always be accurate, but they are … [Read more...]
Why Things Hurt
January 3, 2012 By 7 Comments
Lorimer grew a mo. To help promote men's health. It was during this time that he, and his mo, gave a talk at TEDx. Here it is. httpvh://youtu.be/gwd-wLdIHjs … [Read more...]
Recent Comments