Prof Tasha Stanton (Adelaide University)

Title: Taking perceptual science to the clinic to optimise care for chronic pain

Abstract:

Our understanding of what underpins perceptions of our own body and its capacity is growing, with theories of predictive processing and active inference informing both why we feel what we feel and why we do what we do. In this talk, I will explore how perceptual processes shape bodily feelings, like pain, as well as influence behaviour, such as engagement with exercise. Drawing on contemporary research in pain and perceptual science, this talk will specifically explore how we can use both pain science education and novel technologies such as virtual or mediated reality to generate ‘error’ to update perceptions of the body and its capacity as well as improve engagement with effortful interventions. The talk will explore the roles of expectation/prior experience to highlight why exercise can feel easier or harder independent of physiological capacity and why understanding this is important to both improve our clinical care.

Bio:

Professor Tasha Stanton leads the Persistent Pain Research Group at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) and is co-Director of IIMPACT in Health at Adelaide University. She is a clinical pain neuroscientist, with original training as a physiotherapist. Her research focusses on pain – why do we have it and why doesn’t it go away? She has received >$17.4m in competitive research funding, has published 146 peer-reviewed journal articles, and she has been a keynote/invited speaker at >130 national and international conferences. Her research has won both national and international awards, including the International Association for the Study of Pain Ulf Lindblom Award for Clinical Science, the Australian Pain Society Rising Star Award and the Australian Physiotherapy Association Best New Investigator Award. She has a specific interest in chronic pain, osteoarthritis, pain science education, perceptual science, and novel technologies, such as virtual and mediated reality. Her research group is guided by principles of genuine consumer involvement, working closely with people who have lived experience of pain and with clinicians to identify real-world problems, and together, devise new solutions.