BiM Research Team

The Body In Mind Research teams are divided between two sites - Neuroscience Research Australia, fondly called NeuRA, is located in Sydney and The Sansom Institute for Health Research at the University of South Australia is located in Adelaide. Here are the team:

Carolyn Berryman

Carolyn has been teaching with the Noisters (Neuro Orthopaedic Institute) for the last 10 years and finally got herself into research via a very competitive post-graduate scholarship. Not that she has every stopped studying – she already has a masters in physiotherapy and in pain science – good luck fitting PhD onto the business card! What is Carolyn researching for her PhD? Based at the University of South Australia in Adelaide Carolyn is looking at neurophysiological profiles between chronic pain and PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) during working memory tasks.

What does Carolyn do day to day? She is under piles of papers doing a systematic review of working memory and cognitive impairment in chronic pain. Carolyn will then be using EEG to evaluate what happens in people with pain. When she is not in the office, she lives on an island 100 kms south of Adelaide (that’s a long commute!) and spends her off-time playing with family, sailing and walking. Here is Carolyn talking more about the research she is doing.

Jane Bowering

Jane has an addiction to Vegemite, doesn’t eat cereal, and is currently finishing her Honours in Physiotherapy degree. Jane is intending to do paediatrics physiotherapy, but we are hoping to sideswipe that plan and get her back to do a PhD.

What is she doing at BiM? Jane is doing her honours project in pain research looking at low back left/right trunk rotation judgements and what the effect of back pain is on your ability to choose whether someone is moving to the left or right. It is a huge study – just over 1000 data sets and Jane is starting to see statistical tests in her sleep. She thinks the results are very interesting, but she is drastically short on sleep…… Here is Jane talking more about her research project

Mark Catley

Mark Catley is a PhD candidate in the Body in Mind Research Group (at University of South Australia) in Adelaide. When he is not busy researching, Mark works as a physiotherapist in a rehabilitation hospital. He is interested in the brain’s involvement in the transition from acute pain to chronic pain, and is currently investigating the relationship between cognitive variables, mood and sensory function in people with back pain.

He also has a very particular approach to cooking rice. For perfectly cooked rice: 2/3 cup rice, double that in COLD water, and then 8mins in microwave uncovered. Actually, he has a particular approach to many things – including windows. He is the only BiM team member you should ever get to clean a window.

Flavia Di Pietro

Flavia Di Pietro is a PhD student in the Body and Mind Research Group, Sydney. She is investigating the development of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) after wrist fracture. Specifically, Flavia’s PhD involves brain scanning people who are in a higher than usual amount of pain in the first 3 weeks after the fracture, and then following them for a few months. Her question concerns whether or not there are changes in brain activation patterns that emerge before the CRPS does and if so, what do they tell us about the condition? Flavia is a physiotherapist. She absolutely cleaned up when she did her undergraduate degree at Notre Dame – Brian Edwards Memorial Award, Physio Research Foundation Award, Dean’s Award. No surprises that the Australian Government jumped to support her PhD. She has spent some time with Dr Giandomenico Iannetti’s lab in London and she is quickly becoming our resident imaging authority. Clearly, she did not write this bio.

Here is Flavia talking more about what she does and a link to her published research.

James McAuley

James is Manager of the BiM research group at NeuRA. James is a veritable expert at this sort of thing – having been Manager of the Back Pain Research Group at Sydney University and the George Institute. His research interests are in back pain and clinical pain.

James is possibly the most interesting manager in the world – former club promoter, bar/restaurant and night club operator, underground house music connoisseur, psuedo-vegetarian (for the most interesting of reasons), moped rider and psychologist (yes – that does make him interesting). James has a PhD from Brunel Uni, UK on cultural influences in back pain.

In 2004 he moved to Australia to the Universty of Sydney and George Institute, managing research groups. His personal research is in identifying and treating risk factors for chronic back pain and developing approaches to improve management of chronic low back pain. Recently he has become interested in novel strategies for managing clinical pain in the real world. Link to James’ published research and here is James talking more about what he does at BiM.

Luke Parkitny

Luke Parkitny is a PhD student at Neuroscience Research Australia. He is 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 successfully exploited every opportunity to share this knowledge with other health professionals and lay-persons. Link to Luke’s published research and here he is in person talking about what he does.

Tasha Stanton

Tasha Stanton is a postdoctoral research fellow working with the Body in Mind Research Group both in Adelaide (at University of South Australia) and in Sydney (at Neuroscience Research Australia). Tash has done a bit of hopping around in her career, from studying physio in her undergrad, to spinal biomechanics in her Master’s, to clinical epidemiology in her PhD, and now to clinical neuroscience in her postdoc. Amazingly, there has been a common thread through all this hopping and that common thread is pain. What is pain? Why do we have it? And why doesn’t it go away? Tasha got herself one of the very competitive Canadian IHR post-doctoral fellowships and is establishing her own line of very interesting investigations. Her research interests lie in understanding the neuroscience behind pain and its clinical implications. She also really likes nifty experiments that may have no clinical value yet, but whose coolness factor tops the charts. Last, Tash is a bit mad about running, enjoying a good red with friends and organizing theme parties. Tasha, aka Stanton Deliver, was the all round best performer at the Inaugural BiM Table Tennis Comp. Here is Tasha talking more about what she does and a link to her published research.

Abby Tabor

Abby has a very posh English accent, and clearly doesn’t like granola bars. She is working as a Research Assistant with the UniSA BiM team – getting to grips with what research life entails.

What brought Abby out to Oz? Having done a degree at Kings College London, Mick Thacker’s pain science lectures inspired Abby to delve into what lay behind the clinical experience. While working as a clinician she attended an Explain Pain lecture in London which cemented this quest for knowledge – ‘what will make me better, how do I put the research into practice’.

One of the projects Abby is currently working on is looking at whether inflicting acute pain alters perception of distance, the other is looking at the effect of alcohol on sensory training (Abby reckons she won’t struggle to get volunteers for that study!). Here is Abby talking more about what she does.

Heidi Allen

We reckon that an all too common problem with ‘science’ is that it is only ever broadcast to ‘scientists’. Even then, it is often in journals that are read by a tiny proportion of the community. So, we sat down and thought ‘how can we better disseminate what we do – that is, how do we get the message out there, be a credible and interesting source of commentary on things to do with our research?’ How can we facilitate all those lovely ideas out there into research? Our answer: Heidi. Heidi has set up, run, bugged us all about contributing to this website. She reckons it will serve the aim of the group – to disseminate and facilitate research into the brain and mind in chronic pain disorders. We reckon she is right. Here she is, in person, talking about what she does at BodyInMind.