Neuroscience Intern's Study Presented at World Neurology Congress
Chelsea Clark '13, recent neuroscience program graduate, was interested in factors influencing migraine headache pain. Dr. Roger Allen, from the Physical Therapy Program, has been studying how psychophysiological pathways of the stress response modulate latent changes in neuropathic pain intensity. They combined their interests for Chelsea's neuroscience internship and investigated the temporal relationship between daily stress and delayed modulation of chronic headache pain. They discovered that delayed stress modulation can influence chronic headache pain in two distinctly different ways. Their findings were recently accepted and presented at the World Congress of Neurology in Vienna, Austria. Additionally, the study will be presented in the United States at the American Physical Therapy Association's Combined Sections Meeting in Las Vegas in February 2014. Chelsea was Dr. Allen's second neuroscience intern to have her study presented at an international conference. In 2011, Ali Heartman's work on the relationship between body awareness and treatment response to therapeutic relaxation was presented at the World Physical Therapy Congress in Amsterdam, where it was one of only three studies from the United States to win an award for research excellence.