Students of Florey Stroke: Brendon Haslam

Name: Brendon Haslam
Role, Group: PhD Candidate, Neurorehabilitation and Recovery, Stroke Division
Supervisor(s): Leeanne Carey and David Butler
Email: haslam.b@florey.edu.au
Location: Melbourne Brain Centre, Heidelberg
Twitter handle: @brendonhaslam
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendon-haslam-7a012290/

Brendon Haslam is a PhD Candidate in the Neurorehabilitation and Neurorecovery Laboratory in the Stroke theme at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, and a Research Fellow at La Trobe University.

His research interest is in understanding chronic pain after stroke and the development of effective treatments. His early findings have been presented at scientific conferences in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the USA. His presentation at the Australian Pain Society Scientific Meeting was awarded the Australian Pain Society PhD Travel Grant in 2018, and he has been a previous winner of the Victorian Neurotrauma Skill Development Award.

Brendon has a Bachelor in Applied Science (Physiotherapy) and a Masters in Physiotherapy (Neurological). His current research focus is to identify physical, psychological and cortical organisational contributions to chronic pain, and development of treatment strategies based on these findings.


Tell us about your research.

My area of research is in chronic pain following stroke. I aim to identify the multiple contributions towards the chronic pain experience for people with stroke, recognising that it is often not caused by a physical injury to the musculoskeletal tissues (such as ligament, muscle, tendon or joint). My studies investigate the potential role of sensory dysfunction in the development of chronic pain. I also research potential changes following stroke in the organisation of the sensory cortex, beliefs and perceptions regarding pain, and use fMRI to identify possible neural networks involved. In addition, I will be able to evaluate the impact of chronic pain on people with stroke, looking at their current utilisation of therapeutic interventions and effectiveness of these, including medication use.


Why is your research important?

People with stroke are 2-3 times more likely to experience chronic pain than the general population, and has a significant impact on the physical, social and emotional functioning of people with stroke. Despite the high incidence of pain following stroke, there remains little evidence of effective treatments from both analgesic and non-analgesic (e.g. rehabilitation type therapy) approaches. Research that leads to greater understanding of the contributions towards pain is necessary in order to develop new treatments tailored to address the unique causes of pain in people with stroke.


What would you like to do in the future?

I would like to develop targeted treatments for chronic pain in the stroke population, but also other neurological conditions, who also have a high incidence of chronic pain. These treatments approaches could utilise sensory, psychological, exercise and educational components to address such a complex issue.


What is your favourite thing about the Florey?

What I enjoy most about the Florey is the access to such an amazing group of researchers with amazing knowledge and a common passion, both on a casual basis and in formal presentations that are regularly conducted at the Florey.


What inspired you to pursue stroke research?

Having worked clinically for many years with neurological clients in a rehabilitation setting in addition to working in a pain clinic, I became frustrated at the lack of research addressing the important problem of chronic pain. There have been so many new developments in pain science in recent years, but this has unfortunately not carried over as much as it could into helping clients with stroke and other neurological conditions. I was lucky enough to meet some world leaders in both stroke and pain fields, who have encouraged me to “make it happen”. They initially provided the inspiration and motivation to take it on, and have continued to support me throughout my PhD so far.


Research Projects

RECOGNISE: This is an online study that consists of both questionnaire and interactive tasks. The questionnaire investigates beliefs and perceptions, sensory function, impact of pain, neuropathic symptom profiling and pain behaviour, while the interactive tasks investigate the participant’s ability to identify the “laterality” of body parts presented, giving an insight into potential cortical representation. RECOGNISE will identify differences between stroke participants with and without chronic pain, and is designed to complement previous studies in other pain populations and current medication studies for neurological conditions.

CoNNECT: This is an NHMRC funded study that investigates the effects of an evidenced based upper limb sensory retraining program (SENSe) for people with stroke on the pain experience, among many other things. In addition to many sensory and psychological measures, it also includes functional MRIs performed at multiple time points, giving greater insight into neural networks involved in the retraining of sensation, and possibly the pain experience for people with stroke.

RECOGNISE Face To Face: This study combines the RECOGNISE and CoNNECT studies in investigating potential change in laterality recognition abilities following a sensory retraining program.

SENSe IMPLEMENT: An implementation study, investigating clinical translation of evidenced based therapy (SENSe) into the broad clinical setting.

If you're a stroke survivor or someone with chronic pain, fill in this survey to help Brendon and other researchers at the Florey better understand post-stroke pain: http://research.noigroup.com/?_p=stls

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