Join us as we showcase prize-winning research from the 2024 World Congress on Pain in Amsterdam.
Date: Wednesday, November 27, 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Eastern (US) Time
This webinar is being produced by the International Association for the Study of Pain’s Abdominal and Pelvic Pain Special Interest Group. The Abdominal and Pelvic Pain SIG aims to:
- Provide a forum for members to discuss the diagnosis and management of pain perceived in the abdominal and pelvic areas.
- Promote a multidisciplinary approach to patients with abdominal and pelvic pain. Include the development of global guidelines in which pain, its associated distress, physical disability, and associated disorders are the central subject, independent of the medical specialties (e.g., urology, gynecology, and gastroenterology).
- Disseminate up-to-date abdominal and pelvic pain knowledge by setting up educational programs for patients and caregivers.
- Implement modern systems (e.g., web-based maps) to propagate the guidelines for daily use in patient care.
- Support and develop educational initiatives (including meetings) to disseminate the issues around this pain to a broader audience.
Join us as we showcase prize-winning research from the IASP 2024 World Congress on Pain in Amsterdam. During this webinar, poster winners will give brief descriptions about their innovative research and discuss the future of their work.
Participants include:
- Miriam Szabo, MD, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
A systematic review of studies of brain structure in women with chronic pelvic pain - Natalie Osborne, PhD, Northshore University Health System, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Predictors of widespread body pain development during the menarchal transition - Jana Aulenkamp, MD, Clinic for Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, University Hospital Essen, Germany
Nocebo modulation of pain unpleasantness in the face of visceral and somatic pain - Lakeisha Lewter, PhD, The University of Texas at Dallas, USA
Assessing the role of amygdala calcitonin gene-related peptide receptors on chronic bladder pain - Alec Malmberg, PhD, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands (moderator)
About the Presenters
Miriam Szabo, MD, is a medical doctor from Sweden, currently pursuing a DPhil (PhD) at the Nuffield Department of Women’s & Reproductive Health since autumn 2021. She is a member of the Pain in Women research group, headed by Dr. Katy Vincent. Miriam’s research focuses on examining the brain structure in women with endometriosis, a gynecological condition where uterine-like tissue grows outside the uterus, causing inflammation, pain, and infertility.
Natalie Osborne, PhD is a postdoctoral researcher studying the neural mechanisms of menstrual pain at Endeavor Health/University of Chicago in the Gynecology Research Laboratory. She completed an MSc in Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience at Western University and a PhD under the supervision of Dr. Karen Davis at the University of Toronto. Dr. Osborne’s PhD used fMRI to examine sex differences in chronic pain and the brain. Now, she’s combining neuroimaging techniques (EEG, fMRI) with quantitative sensory testing, psychosocial, and biological data to better understand and predict pelvic pain development and treatment response in adolescents and adults. www.natalieraeosborne.com, X: @NatalieRaeOz
Jana Aulenkamp, MD, is a physician in training at the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine at the University Hospital Essen and a University Medicine Essen Clinician Scientist Fellow. As a member of Professor Dr. Elsenbruch’s project group in the Collaborative Research Center 289 “Treatment Expectation,” directed by Professor Dr. Bingel, she is investigating the influence of treatment effects on visceral pain. This year, she was awarded the Sintetica Research Fellowship by the German Society for Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine. Dr. Jana Aulenkamp is one of the spokespersons of the Young Pain Society in the German Pain Society, and is an active member in the Early Career Network of the IASP.
Lakeisha Lewter, PhD, a native of Laurel, Maryland, earned her BS in biology with a minor in psychology from Morgan State University in 2013. Following her graduation, Dr. Lewter pursued a PhD in neuroscience at The University at Buffalo, focusing on the potential use of subtype-selective GABAA receptor positive allosteric modulators for pain control in the lab of Dr. Jun-Xu Li. She received her doctorate in 2019 and was honored with the Bishop’s Outstanding Neuroscience Thesis Award. Currently, Dr. Lewter is a postdoctoral research associate in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, working in Benedict Kolber’s lab. Her research employs multidisciplinary approaches to explore the mechanisms underlying chronic pain-related lateralization within the amygdala. Dr. Lewter aspires to establish her own lab, dedicated to studying pain disorders that disproportionately affect women, such as endometriosis. She is deeply committed to diversifying the STEM workforce, serving as one of the Texas ambassadors for Black Women PhDs, LLC.
About the Moderator
Alec Malmberg, PhD, studied medicine at Leiden University, where he trained as a gynecologist at the Erasmus Medical Centre and Ikazia Hospital Rotterdam. He worked for 10 years at the Slingeland Hospital with a focus on pelvic floor and operations to correct prolapse and urinary incontinence. He also worked for #DeVerloskundigeZorg with direction for the pregnant woman and her midwife. In 2012, he was asked by the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) to join the team of the Pelvic Floor Center and the Pelvic Pain Center at the University Medical Center Groningen. He is closely involved in research into fecal incontinence, quality of life, and sexual complaints after childbirth and after removal of the uterus. In addition, he conducts research into chronic abdominal and pelvic pain, specifically, improving this guidance.