Edinburgh Psychology Keynote Talk

Speaker: Dr Marina López-Solà (University of Barcelona)

Title: Chronic Primary Pain in Adolescent Girls: Insights from Brain and Behavior

Abstract: Dr López-Solà will reflect on the psychological, physical and brain changes that sharpen during adolescence and that may be associated with the first surge of chronic pain cases along the lifespan. What makes adolescence a particularly vulnerable period from a neurophysiological perspective? I will explain several findings that may render adolescents, particularly adolescent females, more vulnerable to central nervous system plasticity and sustained pain states after injuries, physical overload and sustained psychosocial stress. I will start by explaining our recently published observations on the particularities of pain processing in healthy girls compared with adult women and will then reflect on how different aspects of brain responses to nociceptive stimulation may facilitate transitions from acute to chronic pain states in youth. We will also shed light, based on our recent work -unpublished-, on how different features of cortical sensory integration involving somatosensory systems and extending to other cortical sensory systems (such as visual and auditory) play a role in chronic primary pain. I will explain how brain findings may fit with recent clinical trials showing that tailored neuromuscular training, which makes patients engage in more vigorous physical activity over time with increased self-confidence and less fear, is critical to progressively reduce functional disability and clinical pain.

Further information

For further information please contact Dr Nic Chevalier.

The talk is open to all PPLS staff and postgraduate students as well as Psychology undergraduate students in Year 3 and 4.