Date: Wednesday, December 11, 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., Eastern (US) Time
This webinar is being produced by IASP’s Pain, Mind, and Movement Special Interest Group.
The Pain, Mind, and Movement Special Interest Group aims to act as a multidisciplinary forum of communication to:
- Improve the standard of care provided to patients with disabling pain to improve physical and psychological functioning and increase participation in daily life.
- Empower health professionals and patients to play active roles in the rehabilitation process.
- Encourage basic and clinical research on how mind and movement affect disabling pain.
- Facilitate the translation of evidence into clinical practice and mediate the implementation of new diagnostics and treatments.
- Foster communication among researchers, clinicians, and patients to drive research and stimulate international study.
Join us for an insightful webinar exploring the cutting-edge applications of virtual reality (VR) in chronic pain management. Our distinguished speakers – Zina Trost (Texas A&M University, USA) and Jonas Tesarz (University of Heidelberg, Germany) – will present the latest research and clinical applications of VR technology in pain treatment.
Speakers will discuss topics such as the current state of VR interventions for chronic pain, neurobiological mechanisms underlying VR’s analgesic effects, case studies and clinical trial results, as well as future directions in the field and its potential widespread implementation.
The webinar will be moderated by Johan Vlaeyen (University of Leuven, Belgium, and University of Maastricht, Netherlands), ensuring a dynamic and informative discussion. This session promises to offer valuable insights for healthcare professionals, researchers, and anyone interested in innovative approaches to pain management.
Participants include:
- Zina Trost, PhD, Texas A&M University, Texas, USA
- Jonas Tesarz, MD, University Hospital Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
- Johan Vlaeyen, PhD, University of Leuven, Belgium, and University of Maastricht, the Netherlands (moderator)
This webinar is the first in a featured content series being produced by Pain Research Forum – and has been made possible by a generous grant from the MAYDAY Fund – titled, “Investigating Virtual Reality for Pain Management: Past, Present, and Future.” Be on the lookout for more information regarding this series soon!
About the Presenters
Zina Trost, PhD, is a clinical health psychologist and new associate professor in the TAMU Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, where she leads an innovative research program focusing on adapting virtual reality and gaming technologies to address pain and rehabilitation. Her work also addresses the role of injustice appraisal in pain and health outcomes, and its intersection with health disparities. Dr. Trost earned her bachelor’s degree from Fordham University in New York and her PhD in clinical health psychology in 2010 from Ohio University. She completed her internship at University of Washington, and her postdoctoral work in pain research at McGill University. Her work has received national and international research support, including funding from the American Pain Society, International Association for the Study of Pain, National Institutes of Health, Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, and the US Department of Defense.
Jonas Tesarz, MD, is a specialist in internal medicine as well as psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy. Since November 2024, he has been a professor and the director of the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the University Medical Center of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Dr. Tesarz has extensive experience in pain medicine, with a particular focus on the impact of biopsychosocial factors on pain perception. In 2019, he was awarded the title of Extraordinary Professor at Heidelberg University. Dr. Tesarz earned his doctorate in the field of neurobiology of pain processing and subsequently focused his research on the influence of psychosocial factors on chronic pain syndromes. His main scientific interests include investigating the effects of traumatic life events on pain processing, and the development and scientific evaluation of novel psychological treatment approaches for chronic pain conditions. Dr. Tesarz has been actively involved in pain research and has published widely in the field for many years. He is also the spokesperson for the BMBF-funded research consortium PerPAIN. As part of his scientific work, Dr. Tesarz led the VR-Lab at the Heidelberg Clinical Pain Research Study Outpatient Clinic at University Hospital Heidelberg for several years. For his research on the influence of psychological trauma on pain, Dr. Tesarz received the German Prize for Pain Research in 2015 and the Günter-Jantschek Research Prize for Psychosomatic Research in Internal Medicine in 2018.
About the Moderator
Johan Vlaeyen, PhD, is professor emeritus at the University of Maastricht (Netherlands) and at KU Leuven (Belgium). His main research expertise is the psychological mechanisms underlying the transition from common acute aversive sensations to disabling bodily symptoms. His experimental work includes research on the acquisition of pain-related fear and avoidance behavior. He pioneered the development of the fear-avoidance model of pain, which has since become a widely adopted theoretical framework for understanding the perpetuation of disabling pain and other bodily symptoms. Johan highly values translational research, and he and his team have developed customized cognitive-behavioral management strategies for individuals suffering chronic pain. His lab conducted both group-based RCTs as well as replicated single-case experimental designs to evaluate the effects of these interventions, including exposure-based treatments He has served as a mentor and supervisor to numerous junior scientists, many of whom have since risen to distinguished pain scientists and clinicians.” In 2015, he received a prestigious Methusalem structural research funding from the Flemish Government (Belgium) for the research program “Asthenes: From acute aversive sensations to chronic bodily symptoms.” He serves as Councilor of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) since October 2022.