Blog Feed: Body in mind

We stumbled across this video on YouTube. It has some terrific graphics and is well worth a look. It also has a spectacularly deep voiced star-trek type talking us through some of the neurochemical processes that occur when tissue is injured or inflamed. Some of you might recall a quasi game called Searching for Rene, which forces us to carefully monitor what we are saying to people in pain, because they are often searching for any piece of evidence in what we say or how we say it that would su [..]

It worked before but now it doesn’t? Graded Motor Imagery in Clinical Practice

Published on 2012-10-15 15:30:36

While pain may be a universal experience, one experience that can often plague and frustrate everyone is that moment when something works one moment but then all of a sudden doesn’t work the next. If you’ve ever had the pleasure to experience a moment like this you’ll find that it applies to a great deal of things in life whether it be the temperamental office photocopying machine or in my case a very battered TV remote. In these moments after the initial bout of frustration we usually go [..]

Placebo Analgesia

Published on 2012-10-11 07:00:11

One of the best workshops I attended at the IASP congress in Milano was on placebo analgesia, run by three very classy speakers: Luana Colloca, Ulrike Bingel, and Regine Klinger. I learnt lots about the neurobiological mechanisms of placebo and nocebo, and came away with lots to ponder.

It hurts. It’s in my genes.

Published on 2012-10-08 15:00:34

As we know there have been any number of chronic pain syndromes identified but most people don’t go onto develop chronic pain. What causes chronic pain in some people where others heal fine? This may be down to individual variability but if so is this caused by nature or nurture? Is the variability caused by environmental factors or inherited? This is the question that gave me the most pause for thought at the recent Word Congress for Pain.

Donate now to make Lorimer do it in a dress!

Published on 2012-10-04 07:00:08

Always wanted to see the Keynote Speaker do something outrageous? Think Lorimer would look fetching in football socks and a school dress? Now you have the chance - donate here now.

The search for the ‘hurt’…..in the brain?

Published on 2012-10-01 15:00:01

Labelling things becomes tricky when the things that we are trying to label aren’t necessarily things in the objective sense. The feelings we have, our perceptions, the qualia are open to a plethora of interpretations that can find themselves awkwardly grouped under broad umbrellas.

Field Research

Published on 2012-09-27 19:17:24

At the recent World Congress on Pain, there were enough exhibition stands to keep even the most mischievous amused. One of the most mischievous is Sarah Haag. Here she gives an account of the first of her investigations.....

Interoception and pain – is it better to be ignorant?

Published on 2012-09-25 23:04:27

I just read a fascinating paper in a recent issue of Pain. This paper evaluated the relationship between interoception (ie, the ability to consciously perceive signals from the body) and pain perception.

No Pain No Gain? A new perspective on avoidance behavior

Published on 2012-09-20 06:00:03

No pain no gain! Recently published research suggest that the decision to avoid or persist in pain-evoking activity does not fully depend upon fear, but also on the goals that are related to that activity, and that once we decide to persist, our brain helps protecting these goals by suppressing attention to pain.

Not a dry eye in my house. Paralympics, pain and plasticity.

Published on 2012-09-17 15:00:57

Could it be possible that this mix of personal story, pain, athletic supremity, unbridled elation and self-efficacy could take us to a new place biologically? A neurogenic, neuroplastic, anti-inflammatory state in which adaptation is optimised?

I didn’t do anything to deserve this….

Published on 2012-09-13 08:00:39

"When you live with injustice, you just want to share it”. How does this affect recovery?

Tiny electrodes but big finding – is fibromyalgia a type of small fibre neuropathy?

Published on 2012-09-10 15:00:55

Lorimer went to a splendid topical workshop at the World Congress on Pain. The workshop was about the relative contribution of periphal and central contributions to fibromyalgia. There were three speakers. This blog will focus on the first - Jordi Serra from Barcelona.

Sporty rats beat sedentary rats paws down

Published on 2012-09-06 08:00:13

Is there any evidence that might support the idea that staying active following injury is good for you? Mind you, I am not looking for any obvious things like the potential effects of movement on fear or mood; I am specifically on the hunt for something at least slightly “esoteric”!

Is joint instability in knee osteoarthritis mediated by proprioception and/or somatosensation?

Published on 2012-09-03 15:00:36

Several factors have been suggested to contribute to knee instability. This study asks how does hypoesthesia (decreased sensitivity to mechanical stimuli and vibration) influence knee stability?

World Congress on Pain Posters

Published on 2012-08-30 15:00:40

Scientific conferences usually have a poster section which provide a rich and condensed source of research that is currently being done. The International Association for the Study of Pain congress in Milan had a huge array, hundreds of new posters every day, ranging from treatment approaches to ethics and law. Some of the BiM team are presenting posters which we have loaded here. Here is a summary of the topics and links to individual posters

Woolly Undercrackers! For chronic back pain! This seasons methylene blue?

Published on 2012-08-27 15:00:43

Keeping up to date in chronic back pain research is a busy process and yet it is rare that a new paper really catches the eye. But today a trial of a new therapeutic approach was dredged up in my search alerts. It is clearly novel and ground breaking. It is…. wait for it….woollen knickers.

Challenge the Uncomfortable Silence

Published on 2012-08-22 16:00:45

It may take a variety of professionals to unravel the complex contributions to persistent pelvic pain. It may be that you are comfortable screening for pelvic pain but have no intention of treating it. Happily there are physiotherapists, MDs, social workers and other professionals that can be part of an interdisciplinary team for these patients.

How do Nerves Work. TEDEd

Published on 2012-08-20 15:00:29

Here is a nice video about neurones. TEDEd does truly bring together some clever people to make education more fun, more effective and more available. I am not sure that all the language in this video is consistent with how I understand the nervous system as it relates to pain, but I would welcome any and all comments on it.

Today is an auspicious day

Published on 2012-08-16 21:28:22

On this day in 2009 BiM published it's first blog post. Now we have regular 3,800 visits to the site a week from all over the world. Over 3,000 people who have come to see us on Facebook, of which many regularly contribute. Our LinkedIn group has another, possibly somewhat different, group of people who regularly comment, and for you twitterphiles - thanks for the retweets and also the good information you push our way. We get very excited to see readers in far flung places of the world. In the [..]

The Opioid Bank. It seems we are facing another global crisis!

Published on 2012-08-13 21:11:19

TweetOpioids. We all know what they are and that there are a lot of them going around, but it wasn’t until I was asked to write this blog on the information overloading review by Manchikanti and friends (2010) that I realised quite the extent. And to tell you the truth, it’s painfully scary! In a [...]

How Academics Face the World

Published on 2012-08-09 15:00:37

These days, academics routinely talk about their work and place pictures of themselves on the web. However, the picture we choose to show the world may reveal more about the way we see ourselves than we realise.

Pain assessment flowchart. Patient, practitioner and environment

Published on 2012-08-05 21:35:06

TweetIn my general physiotherapy practice about one in five patients come with complex pain, disability and loss. I love sorting out the pieces of the puzzle that creates these situations. A challenge is not to get lost amongst all the pieces. So I take the patient on a journey of discovery as I find all [...]

The New Back Pain Choices Tool

Published on 2012-07-30 21:14:24

The National Prescribing Service and the George Institute for Global Health have jointly launched a new decision support tool, Back Pain Choices, to assist primary care clinicians diagnose and manage back pain in line with best practice guidelines.

What can a patient’s pain tell us about contributing mechanisms?

Published on 2012-07-26 08:00:26

Ever read something and asked 'So how do I integrate all this stuff when I assess a patient and plan treatment? Here is a general guide that we use to interpret how a patient describes their pain. Free to download.

Beyond the colour of my skin

Published on 2012-07-23 15:14:19

Social attitudes affect unconscious sensorimotor mappings but how important are differences in skin colour for determining what is and is not part of our own bodies.

The moving phantom. Motor execution or motor imagery?

Published on 2012-07-20 00:04:44

When treating phantom limb pain, treatment outcome is likely to be affected depending on whether your patient is imagining or actually moving their phantom limb. Karen Reilly explains

Considering patient preferences when treating chronic NSLBP

Published on 2012-07-16 18:54:22

Non-specific low back pain (NSLBP) is, by definition, a case of ‘I am not quite sure what is wrong with you’ and thus ‘I am not entirely sure of how to fix you’. Despite a plethora of management options, it appears no one treatment works for every patient. In the latest issue of the Lancet, Balagué and colleagues1 reviewed the recent literature to see what advances we have made in treating this condition.

Extinction is the Path to the Light Side of the Force

Published on 2012-07-12 07:07:24

Every saga has a sequel – in the previous blog post on learning and pain-related fear in chronic pain, I explained how pain-related fear can be acquired through associative learning. In this blog post, I will focus on how we can reduce pain-related fear once it has been acquired.

Fear is the Path to the Dark Side

Published on 2012-07-09 14:58:10

There is no doubt that there is heaps of wisdom in the Star Wars saga. For example, Master Yoda said once: “Fear is the path to the dark side”. When it comes to chronic pain, and in particular how acute pain might turn into chronic pain, Yoda’s quote is spot on! Fear-avoidance models consider pain-related fear as an important factor in the development and maintenance of chronic musculoskeletal pain

Expecting bad things – what are the repercussions?

Published on 2012-07-05 15:11:28

Based on a recent narrative review in Neuroscience Letters from Atlas and Wager I have come away with a healthy respect for the role of expectation in pain. This review considers placebo and nocebo responses, and stimulus expectancy effects and gives a great overview of the various responses, body systems, and brain and spinal cord regions possibly involved or related to expectancy.

Just how much can the coloured blobs tell us

Published on 2012-07-02 15:15:27

When it comes to treating someone in pain we have one way of knowing if our treatment has effected pain relief, and that is the patient’s verbal report. Perhaps another way of knowing whether pain has changed is to look at what’s happening in the brain. Well, this review is addressing precisely this question

Fluid Ink

Published on 2012-06-26 21:05:54

Genesis: To cut a very long story short, Smudj was born from a very dark period in my life. So dark that not a pin prick of light could be seen. I was on the knife edge of suicidal, wanting to be sliced into oblivion.

A day in the life of a clinical scientist

Published on 2012-06-20 15:00:44

I know that many of you out there are 'in the 'hood' with respect to writing and reviewing manuscripts. For the rest of you, here are some cracker reviews we got on a paper concerning the development of CRPS. I have had to remove some bits because they give away the journal and the study, which we will resubmit somewhere else. If you have any similarly complimentary reviews you are prepared to share, we could start a repository for them. Might make a good book one day....

James Kerr on the Didge

Published on 2012-06-18 14:36:17

James Kerr on the Didge

Skin: not as superficial as you think

Published on 2012-06-14 14:41:52

A human foetus can do it, as can a newt, even a starfish has got it nailed; yet when it comes to you and I, regeneration is a struggle. That is not to say we can’t repair ourselves, we do so but the end result – a scar - can have a profound effect on the physical and psychological aspects of sufferer. Fiona Wood strives to change this. World renowned for her work with burns victims, she graced the recent NOI conference with her seminal ideas on tissue healing that were far from skin deep, e [..]

A sparkling, glittery threat to evidence based practice

Published on 2012-06-11 14:49:34

What sections of a research paper do you routinely read. Honestly. The abstract? The introduction or discussion? On closer scrutiny most will manage the conclusion of the abstract. A whole paper boiled down to one or two sentences. Two new papers in the musculoskeletal field have just been published that speak loudly to this problem. The first is a fantastic cautionary tale...

Hats off to a physiotherapist waving the flag high in the pain world

Published on 2012-06-07 15:29:09

I had the pleasure of meeting Steven George at the American Pain Society meeting. He has done some excellent work and is part of a truly impressive group of people working out of the University of Florida. Now this blog post is simply to pay tribute to what is a great achievement – Dr George has just been announced as the winner of the 2012 Ulf Lindblom Award from the IASP

Does graded motor imagery satisfy the Burns test?

Published on 2012-06-04 15:00:59

Explaining Pain has been put through its paces on the Burns test of 5 criteria that need to be met if we are to accept a theory of how a treatment works. Now I am going to put graded motor imagery (GMI) through the same test, just to give you all an idea on how far we have to go.

It might work, but does it work in the manner you think it does? Another good talk at the American Pain Society meeting in Honolulu.

Published on 2012-05-31 15:00:37

It might work, but does it work in the manner you think it does? We sometimes have some pretty whacky mechanisms to explain treatments that work and I am on the record as saying that we need to be open-minded about how an apparently effective treatment might work. Well, it seems that the psychology world is dealing with the same issues...

Vania Apkarian and the holy grail

Published on 2012-05-28 15:03:36

Vania Apkarian and his group at NorthWestern in Chicago have been working for over a decade on functional and structural brain imaging in people with chronic pain. Over that time, his group has stamped its name on much of what is known about the brain of people in chronic pain. Here is a bit of what his group, and others, have discovered.

His and hers opioids – one size does not fit both

Published on 2012-05-24 14:00:44

There is probably no one on the planet who would have contributed more to our current understanding of opioid use for analgesia than Prof Levine and his recent work sheds light on a question often raised – “Do men and women respond in the same way to opioids?”

Part two of Parallel worlds collide… and we all see stars, or astrocytes at least

Published on 2012-05-21 15:35:18

Immune activation can produce some powerful and longlasting behaviour changes. Take single event learning for example - Ader and Cohen's seminal study proved that the immune system response could be behaviourally conditioned. So how does thinking about immune activation have the potential to change our intervention?

Parallel worlds collide… and we all see stars, or astrocytes at least

Published on 2012-05-18 02:45:31

Perhaps our language has always hinted at the involvement of glial cells in injury? And, when glial cells outnumber neurons in the brain by 20 to 1, it begs the question who is really in charge of synaptic activity (should that be plasticity) in the brain?

Pelvic Pain – all the fun stuff

Published on 2012-05-08 21:31:45

TweetMany of us here at BiM went to the Festival de NOI a couple of weeks ago. It was fab. However, we know that most of you couldn’t make it and we thought we wold briefly recap some of the talks so you can feel the passion for yourselves. Here is the first one….. This [...]

A story from the Inaugural Ride for Pain

Published on 2012-05-03 20:43:45

Last Sunday, April 29th, saw the first ever UniSA Ride for Pain. The day can only be described as a rip-roaring success. The stats were impressive – over 550 riders, 400 of whom took on the whole 100km and most of those conquering the mighty Corkscrew Challenge – but it was the terrific stories that capture the essence of what really was a terrific day. I will recount one here...

Stressed mice and weak p53: Alas! Not cancer free!

Published on 2012-04-19 15:16:08

There is an old and well known adage that stress causes negative health outcomes including the formation of gastric ulcers, heart disease, and cancer. How this takes place in any specific individual is difficult to sort out. However, sometimes when complex things are too complex it’s nice to look for some of the possible mechanisms.

Learning and Chronic pain part III

Published on 2012-04-16 21:31:46

There is some evidence that classical conditioned responses play a role in chronic pain. Can you unlearn a classically conditioned response? How do you inhibit a memory?

Windows into pain. Part II

Published on 2012-04-12 15:08:26

TweetIt has been about a month since I wrote a post reflecting on this pain I have in my shoulder. I must say I was overwhelmed by the many offers of diagnostic and treatment advice – it left me both chuffed and a little apprehensive about revisiting it. To start, let me say that my [...]

Post-Traumatic Growth, Resilience or Pure Stubbornness?

Published on 2012-04-09 19:38:02

Not too long ago The New York Times ran an article proposing a positive side of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It featured the US Army Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program, an ambitious application of positive psychology initiated by BG (Ret) Cornam with guidance from Dr. Martin Seligman.

Carpal tunnel syndrome: thinking outside the box (or wrist)

Published on 2012-04-05 15:05:44

Many patients with CTS also have coexisting neck and/or arm pain. It remains unclear whether identified altered pain thresholds are truly caused by CTS, or are just a result of the coexisting neck or arm disorders. To address this issue, we investigated whether the presence of abnormal extraterritorial pain thresholds can be substantiated....

The Graded Motor Imagery Handbook: “Thats what I’m talkin’ about!”

Published on 2012-04-02 15:00:29

I think my 7 year old son knew that if he used this phrase enough it would eventually sneak into a blog post. Well congratulations Lord Adorable SqueakyPants, it has! It has made it in because we are pretty excited that a project we have been working on for some time is almost done - it is at the printing press as we speak.

Healing Hands MIRAGEs and illusions

Published on 2012-03-29 15:00:23

Our research at The University of Nottingham unexpectedly stumbled into the media spotlight: “Mind tricks may help arthritic pain; Illusions can halve the pain of osteoarthritis” the headlines read. They were referring to our MIRAGE multisensory illusions box, which can create a powerful illusion that the hand or fingers are being stretched or shrunk...

Learning and chronic pain Part 2

Published on 2012-03-26 15:30:05

n the previous blog post we discussed a model for a way in which a neutral stimulus when repeatedly paired with a biologically significant stimulus might come to elicit a conditioned response that is similar to the response to the biologically significant stimulus. Well here is a bit more on that very theme...

Learning and chronic pain Part 1

Published on 2012-03-21 15:41:54

In the realm of chronic pain, “problem learning” discussion usually revolves around the processes of sensitisation (i.e. central) and operant conditioning (i.e. development of habitual pain behaviours through reinforcement processes). Ironically, perhaps the most famous form of learning has received the least attention by researchers in chronic pain. I am of course talking about...

Is the pursuit of happiness making us miserable?

Published on 2012-03-15 16:00:08

Come to what looks like a fabulous evening in Sydney, run by the innovative MIND special interest group of the Australasian Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine – ‘Happiness, depression and health care: Is the pursuit of happiness making us miserable’. It will be worth it. ’

Can tweets predict citations?

Published on 2012-03-12 22:48:20

TweetA recent article in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR)[1] looked at whether it is feasible to measure social impact of, and public attention to, newly published research articles by analysing buzz in social media – specifically twitter. It also asked whether these metrics are sensitive and specific enough to predict highly cited articles [...]

Windows into pain

Published on 2012-03-08 15:30:43

TweetI have a painful shoulder. It has been hurting since mid-December. I can recall no incident – just woke up one morning with severe pain on pretty much any movement. Now, I am not looking for diagnoses, nor in fact sympathy. What I would like to do instead is to run you through some interesting [...]

More fragility in core stability

Published on 2012-03-05 20:47:54

A closer look at the role of spinal stabilisation exercises in chronic low back pain. Do patients get better after core stability exercises for the reasons we think they do?

It’s Time to Quit Fooling ourselves…It’s time to Move Forward in the Treatment of Pain

Published on 2012-03-02 07:36:17

The education within the field of Physical Therapy profession is rapidly changing but we still don't understand “why” our patients are in pain. Please support our grassroots effort urging the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) to change this and incorporate pain science into entry-level physical therapy education.

My back has shrunk – The influence of cupping therapy on body image

Published on 2012-02-27 22:03:34

This PhD research investigates the effect of cupping therapy in the treatment of chronic neck pain. We know patients with chronic low back pain show body image distortions and we wondered if this would apply for chronic neck pain as well. So we adapted the design of the body image drawings for the neck area and patients who suffered from chronic neck pain were asked to draw the neck area as they felt it.

Media Release: Ride to raise awareness for chronic pain

Published on 2012-02-23 15:01:56

The first time I rode up Corkscrew Road I thought, there are so many metaphors here. You’ve got to be patient, you can’t go too hard, you’ve got to be courageous ... all the things I required to get up that hill were what people with chronic pain require on a longer, tougher basis. We shouldn’t be looking at people with chronic pain as malingerers and fragile; we should be looking at them as tough and courageous and with potential to get better.

The role of Range of Motion in recovery from Whiplash Associated Disorders

Published on 2012-02-20 17:42:39

In clinical practice, Health Care Professionals attach value to measurements of cervical spine Range of Motion (ROM) for diagnostic, prognostic and treatment evaluation purposes. There is evidence that cervical ROM can help us with diagnosis of whiplash associated disorders but this systematic literature review found conflicting evidence that cervical spine ROM is valuable for prognosis for poor outcome following a whiplash injury.

Poles support WW2 veteran in trial

Published on 2012-02-16 21:51:13

'Chocolate cake breakfast could help you lose weight' really made my eyes pop when I was reading the Telegraph and I almost ended up at the bakery. But then I read the original study...

Peer review picks a pack of pickled papers

Published on 2012-02-14 20:37:40

Did you know that apparently the first medical journals were published some 300 years ago? And that the idea of peer review arose about the same time? Just published, here is a systematic review of peer review for scientific manuscripts.

Get moving for chronic pain research

Published on 2012-02-09 11:55:42

WOO HOOOO! You can register for the most important cycling event of the year - UniSA's Ride for Pain. April 29th 2012. There is something for everyone - a choice of the easy 35km on the flat, the 45km into the hills, or for the more serious - a 100km through the Adelaide Hills.

My knee is aching so its going to rain

Published on 2012-02-06 14:30:07

As a small child I was fascinated by my uncle's ‘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."

World Congress on Physical Therapy releases ‘Teaching people about pain’ Symposium

Published on 2012-02-02 14:00:04

Teaching people about pain symposium. Lorimer Moseley, David Butler, Adriaan Louw and Mick Thacker

The moral hazard of whiplash

Published on 2012-01-30 21:11:40

What is the role of health professionals in managing acute whiplash associated disorders. Some research suggests this is a moral hazard.

More on body awareness and chronic pain

Published on 2012-01-26 17:46:00

Evidence has been accumulating that shows that people with chronic pain have modifications in body awareness. Camila Valenzuela-Moguillansky writes about a large review just published on this research

The development of the Canadian Physiotherapy Pain Science Division

Published on 2012-01-23 14:16:55

You may not know what the The Pain Science Division of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association get up to. Here is more about what they do and some of the people involved. You may know them.....

Maltreated children show same pattern of brain activity as combat soldiers

Published on 2012-01-19 13:39:18

This is the first functional MRI brain scan study to investigate the impact of physical abuse and domestic violence on children.

TNF-a: the scroundrel that can smile and smile

Published on 2012-01-16 14:29:27

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. What usually stands out?

rTMS and chronic pain: Our two penny’s worth

Published on 2011-07-05 00:32:58

Some of you might have heard of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and its use in chronic pain - what is the efficacy?

Promising results from a graded retraining programme in chronic back pain

Published on 2011-06-28 23:20:45

TweetReduction in pain and disability with a graded sensorimotor retraining program in chronic back pain Our team recently returned home from Darwin, where we all attended the Australian Pain Society’s Annual Scientific Meeting. We all presented

Clinical features and PATHOPHYSIOLOGY OF CRPS – a long-awaited review

Published on 2011-06-23 03:58:03

At the world congress on pain in Glasgow, 2008, a small group of CRPS researchers got around a table and asked each other something like ‘isn’t it high time we got together and wrote a current concepts in CRPS pathophysiology paper?’

Never get a lift to the airport with an Irishman

Published on 2011-06-15 18:41:09

I went to Dublin the other day. I like Dublin. I like the Irish actually. One Irishman who seems particularly likeable is a fellow called David Fitzgerald. He offered to take me to the airport. We got there and then, out of his dubious looking backpa

Limericks about pain and practice. You choose the winner.

Published on 2011-06-13 19:13:49

I was fortunate enough to meet with a bunch of (mainly) Californians in a lovely Jacaranda-laden Campus of St Mary's College, LA. There was a competition to write a limerick about current concepts in pain science and implications for clinical practi

To tweet or not tweet unpublished data

Published on 2011-06-09 01:30:18

Unpublished data must stay unpublished for research papers to be accepted for publication, yet with smart phones it's very easy to share pics of slides on facebook, blogs, and twitter. This is what happens when you ask your audience to turn off their

Back Pains, Rubbery Brains, Doubts Remain

Published on 2011-06-06 15:30:38

A while back Ben Wand blogged here about grey matter density changes in the brain and chronic pain. A new study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience by David Seminowicz et al tells what appears to be a similar story.

Giving him the (fake) finger. Introducing the plastic finger illusion.

Published on 2011-06-02 08:30:37

Does proprioceptive input, from muscle spindles and joint receptors for example, contribute to our sense of body ownership?

The cortical body matrix. Reloaded.

Published on 2011-05-31 01:30:17

People with chronic pain have some pretty odd perceptual disturbances. In an attempt to integrate this smorgasboard of body-related dysfunction, we recently proposed the idea of a cortical body matrix.

Don’t just rub it better, cross it over – the analgesic effect of crossing your arms.

Published on 2011-05-26 01:10:42

There is a new paper just out in Pain that raises the possibility of a quick and easy analgesic strategy – crossing your arms. My mum reckons that her mum was onto that decades ago

Subgroups in low back pain – were the assumptions correct?

Published on 2011-05-23 15:41:28

Our study aimed to evaluate a treatment-based classification algorithm for low back pain. This algorithm was created to provide a clinical decision-making paradigm to help guide treatment selection for back pain. Were the assumptions correct?

Subgroups in low back pain – a treatment-based classification algorithm

Published on 2011-05-19 08:37:40

This study aimed to evaluate a treatment-based classification algorithm for low back pain. This algorithm was created to provide a clinical decision-making paradigm to help guide treatment selection for back pain.

It’s semantical my dear Watson

Published on 2011-05-17 01:00:59

I recently read an interesting article from Vraceany et al titled “Less specific arm illnesses". The authors make some very good points about what are frequently futile clinical approaches. However, the foundations they erect to support these argum

Lorimer’s public lecture on a cold wet Adelaide evening

Published on 2011-05-11 22:03:17

TweetThe University of South Australia runs these public lectures called the Knowledge Works series. The community here seems to enjoy these lectures and it is, in my view, a terrific thing for the Uni to be doing. What is more, I love the opportunit

Beware of your imaginary fish

Published on 2011-05-09 22:14:47

TweetI must have been a very good boy last year because Santa brought me some lovely books. One of these was “Naming Nature” by Carol Kaesuk Yoon and it outlines the history of biological classification. A major theme in the book is the conflict

Missing in Action? How are Pain Journals using Social Media?

Published on 2011-05-05 08:05:16

TweetTo tweet or not to tweet, that is the question. Nature journal recently put out “Peer review: Trial by Twitter: Blogs and tweets are ripping papers apart within days of publication, leaving researchers unsure how to react”. The fact

Nails in the coffin

Published on 2011-05-02 01:41:09

TweetBIM invited me to add my “two pennyworth” (two cents worth for the rest of you!) following Lorimer’s series of excellent blogs. Despite his protestation there is no going back……., the end of neurocentricity is nigh! No one interested i

A new blog on the block

Published on 2011-04-27 22:49:49

A new blog has appeared that we think is worth checking out: theICECReam.org

Neuroimmunology for idiots. Part 3: Immune system in neuroplasticity

Published on 2011-04-25 15:22:35

The last in the neuroimmunology series I am trying to get my head around the role of cytokines in facilitating long term potentiation and nurturing neuroplasticity.

Neuroimmunology for idiots. Part 2: Immune system in learning & memory – inflammatory cytokines.

Published on 2011-04-21 01:07:30

The last post discussed the role of T cells and T cell-derived IL-4, an anti-inflammatory cytokine. This post will focus on other inflammatory cytokines, in particular IL-1, IL-6 and TNF-α. First, IL-1.

Neuroimmunology for dummies. Part 1: Immune system in learning and memory – T cells.

Published on 2011-04-18 21:42:44

A common way to investigate what role particular biological markers play is to breed (in the loosest sense of the word - ie genetically engineer) an animal that doesn’t have those biomarkers. Mice are the usual suckers. Mice can be ‘bred’ to h

Mutterings of a neurocentric. Or, neuroimmunology for dummies

Published on 2011-04-13 18:17:07

TweetI was going to call this post ‘Immune effects on thinking, memory, neuroplasticity and neurogenesis’ but I thought it sounded a bit high-brow. In fact, for the first time in my brief bloglife I have found myself stuck on an opening, but I

Watch my back buddy

Published on 2011-04-10 15:34:26

Some time ago, a very impressive person by the name of Helen, came and had coffee at a pretty average cafe in Oxford, hoping to extend stuff we had done with left/right hand judgements to back pain. Well, I have recently met another impressive person

The price of discovery – help protect Australian Health and Medical Research

Published on 2011-04-06 23:03:01

Over the past month the Australian health and medical research sector has been advocating for the continued support of medical research funding as part of the federal budget process. BiM researchers have put this case to government, as have a number

The low back pain forum of magic

Published on 2011-04-05 00:51:38

Recently, I attended a conference in Melbourne – the International Low Back Pain Forum for Research in Primary Care. This conference is organised by researchers who are interested in low back pain epidemiological research in – can you guess it?

What’s in a name? Nociception by any other name will hurt, or not hurt, just as much

Published on 2011-03-31 07:30:48

A while back I wrote a piece about Consciousness and Pain, in which I argued that consciousness might be the key ingredient for pain. I even tried my hand at a bit of maths, with this little equation (not to be taken too exactly): pain = nociception

Of shiny pictures and poorer outcomes: Spinal MRI and back pain

Published on 2011-03-28 14:30:16

Diagnosing low back pain is a nightmare. It established that apart from the 15% of back pain cases which can be attributed to a specific spinal pathology, the majority of cases fall under the unsatisfactory umbrella label of “non-specific low back

Can photoshop make my bottom smaller?

Published on 2011-03-22 14:28:26

I had my annual viewing of Susan Boyle on Britain’s got talent this morning. Then I came across this amazing demonstration of what photoshop can do. Is it possible that if you think you look a particular way, your body changes the way it works to

Your somatic markers know when to hold ‘em

Published on 2011-03-21 00:13:11

There is a very large body of data that show that the body affects the mind. That is, bodily processes and responses to stimuli affect our thoughts about those stimuli and our behavioural responses to them. Some of the most intriguing research in thi

BodyinMind dot org is live

Published on 2011-03-16 15:35:19

When we started bodyinmind.com.au, we had no idea that leaving off the DOT AU leads to a VERY different kind of website. We have been alerted to this on a few occasions, so we have gone the extra yard and gone DOT ORG.

Left or Right Brain Game

Published on 2011-03-14 14:35:54

Left or Right Brain Game. I reckon that all great scientific discoveries are judged on two criteria: firstly the idea must be truly original and useful to human-kind and secondly it must permeate into popular culture. I’ll cite two examples...

Maintenance spinal manipulation: The cherry-pickers quandary

Published on 2011-03-10 06:30:19

A closer look at a new study that purportedly demonstrates a real benefit to spinal manipulation in chronic back pain and seems to validate that controversial practice of regularly seeing patients between flare-ups for a “quick click” to keep the

Maintenance spinal manipulation: The cherry-pickers quandary

Published on 2011-03-10 06:30:19

Sadness, soreness and staying alert—all in the same place

Published on 2011-03-07 13:30:10

Sadness, soreness and staying alert - are they all in the same place of the brain?

Sadness, soreness and staying alert—all in the same place

Published on 2011-03-07 13:30:10

Sadness, soreness and staying alert - are they all in the same place of the brain?

Popping your disc – when ‘elegant simplifications’ are ‘catastrophic trivialisations’

Published on 2011-03-03 06:39:34

We could do well to think carefully about the accuracy of not only what we say, but what we imply, when we tell patients what is happening inside their body. This point was made particularly clear to me when a fellow tried to sell me an educational m

Popping your disc – when ‘elegant simplifications’ are ‘catastrophic trivialisations’

Published on 2011-03-03 06:39:34

Looks can be deceiving. A bigger hand hurts less.

Published on 2011-02-28 13:32:35

Many psychological therapies for acute pain focus on the painful stimulus, however, thinking beyond the stimulus that causes pain, to the body itself, may lead to novel clinical treatments in the future.

Looks can be deceiving. A bigger hand hurts less.

Published on 2011-02-28 13:32:35

Does smoking hurt as well as harm? (or, as if you needed another reason)

Published on 2011-02-24 06:43:00

I have a couple of mates who are veritable smoke-stacks. They love smoking but sort of hate being a smoker. I must confess that, at least within my community, smoking is now officially uncool and my mates are sick of people telling them good reasons

Does smoking hurt as well as harm? (or, as if you needed another reason)

Published on 2011-02-24 06:43:00

TweetI have a couple of mates who are veritable smoke-stacks. They love smoking but sort of hate being a smoker. I must confess that, at least within my community, smoking is now officially uncool and my mates are sick of people telling them good rea

Comments from the Lager Man – is NMDAr upregulation 4ever

Published on 2011-02-21 13:20:53

A little while ago, Paul Lagerman said this: ".... I was speaking to a colleague of mine who is a pain specialist and we were discussing central sensitisation. As I understand it there is a genetic change in the cell nucleus which causes an increas

Comments from the Lager Man – is NMDAr upregulation 4ever

Published on 2011-02-21 13:20:53

TweetA little while ago, Paul Lagerman said this: “…. I was speaking to a colleague of mine who is a pain specialist and we were discussing central sensitisation. As I understand it there is a genetic change in the cell nucleus which

Placebo 101. In three minutes.

Published on 2011-02-17 13:30:59

Very occasionally, Heidi will show me something on youtube (or one of those Heidi-type sites) that is really very good. And this really is very good. The graphics are superb. The coverage of material is excellent. It is faithful to the evidence. It i

Placebo 101. In three minutes.

Published on 2011-02-17 13:30:59

TweetOccasionally, very occasionally, Heidi will show me something on youtube (or one of those Heidi-type sites) that is really very good. And this really is very good. The graphics are superb. The coverage of material is excellent. It is faithful to

The King’s Speech – lessons for the modern clinician

Published on 2011-02-14 17:14:48

What is the art and science of question-asking? I now have seen the movie The king's speech a couple of times, it is great in the movie when Geoffrey Rush (Lionel) goes right to the problem via the same inquiry strategy he learned from a well honed s

The King’s Speech – lessons for the modern clinician

Published on 2011-02-14 17:14:48

By Denis Dempsey I now have seen the movie The king’s speech a couple of times and after seeing it again it is great to realize that you guys downunder have been all over the whole ‘threat’ concept for much longer than I am sure you

Just a heartbeat away from one’s body

Published on 2011-02-10 06:30:16

Body image means different things to different people. To many it refers to how one feels about one's body. To us, it refers to how one's body feels to oneself and how one perceives its shape, orientation, agency and ownership.

Just a heartbeat away from one’s body

Published on 2011-02-10 06:30:16

Body image means different things to different people. To many it refers to how one feels about one’s body. To us, it refers to how one’s body feels to oneself and how one perceives its shape, orientation, agency and ownership. Hopefu

Can one have pain and not know it?

Published on 2011-02-07 13:23:52

By Flavia Di Pietro I think about this a lot. It leads me to ponder the distinction between pain and nociception. We found a chapter on exactly this in a great book we are slowly reviewing at BiM – The Science of Pain. The chapter’s title g

Seeing the forest for the trees. Thinking about motor imagery in kids with hemiplegia

Published on 2011-02-03 06:33:19

By Megan Auld In research and in clinical practice, I’m forever finding myself snagged on the details – missing the story by getting caught up with p-values, forgetting that the arm I’m treating is connected to a head. Which is perhaps why I

Chronic back pain: Behavioural treatments sent to the naughty step?

Published on 2011-01-31 13:15:28

We have written a fair amount here about back pain. We’ve criticised some of the information patients get, shown how data has undermined many widely held beliefs about back pain (here and here), and acknowledged the rather desperate state of the ev

Minding mindfulness – what is going on?

Published on 2011-01-27 06:00:28

Mindfulness is, it seems, in fashion. Every month there seems to be a new TV show or talkback hour on its wondrous curative powers. It made it into our Christmas Dinner Conversation and I am waiting for the mindfulness-branded t-shirts and environm

Guidelines for treating fibromyalgia in primary care physical therapy

Published on 2011-01-24 13:30:55

Guidelines are so in aren’t they? I guess this is what happens when evidenced based medicine begins to take hold. Broadly speaking, I reckon it is a good thing. There are caveats of course – see the furore that can emerge when powerfu

Starting conversations – has Jason hit the Silvernail on the head?

Published on 2011-01-19 14:00:57

We had a BiM team meeting on Tuesday, as we do every Tuesday. We got talking about the BiM blog – revisiting our objectives and how best to meet them. A key objective is to facilitate dissemination AND conversation. Well we have been well and

Does it hurt when I do this?

Published on 2011-01-17 13:51:28

By Steve Kamper I’m a physiotherapist, as physios (and we’re not alone here) we love to poke and prod our patients with our fingers and ask if it hurts. Anatomical training and experience tells us exactly which part we are poking and the knowing

Is this the Father of Evidence Based Medicine? David Sackett talks

Published on 2011-01-13 06:00:53

Here is a superstar, well I guess he is sort of a pioneer/superstar, of evidenced based medicine, in an interview with a slightly cheesy fellow, just after Sackett won the Gairdner Award for Leadership in Medicine. These awards are extremely posh and

If You’re reading this then they haven’t shut the power off yet

Published on 2011-01-11 22:07:34

BiM will be offline for a few days as Brisbane continues to flood and the power is being shut off. The room that is hosting our sever will soon be under water. Gotta feel for those guys.

The Lone Wolf or the Support Group Enthusiast?

Published on 2011-01-10 14:00:13

What type of person are you?? When tough times come around – whether it is stress at work, a painful injury, or forced participation in Secret Santa – what do you do? Some people, those lone wolf types, find relief in being alone, taking some tim

The elusive x-factor

Published on 2011-01-05 14:00:55

What is it about some clinicians? They just seem to get great results by doing almost nothing! Could that be true? What is that elusive x-factor? Well, fortunately for us, Laura von Bertouch has agreed to tell us about a paper she does read that cove

Novelty, exercise and diet – the cornerstones of neural and cognitive plasticity

Published on 2011-01-02 14:00:08

I am sitting in the local cafe. I am a Wednesday regular – the muffins are superb and they give you a timer for your pot of tea. I have been reading a great paper that reviews neural and cognitive plasticity, with a focus on what we should al

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