Emma Biggs

• PhD
• Postdoctoral Researcher at Stanford University

Background/Objectives: Fatigue is a known predictor of disability and reduced quality of life in youth with hypermobility and chronic pain in general. Given the added relationship between chronic fatigue and connective tissue disorders, including hypermobile Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome (hEDS), this study aims to investigate the comparative role of fatig...

Movement constraints in stroke survivors are often accompanied by additional impairments in related somatosensory perception. A complex interplay between the primary somatosensory and motor cortices is essential for adequate and precise movements. This necessitates investigating the role of the primary somatosensory cortex in movement deficits of s...

Memory biases for pain-related information may contribute to the development and maintenance of chronic pain; however, evidence for when (and for whom) these biases occur is mixed. Therefore, we examined neural, stress, and psychological factors that could influence memory bias, focusing on memories that motivate disabling behaviors: pain perceptio...

Chronic pain is common in young people and can have a major life impact. Despite the burden of chronic pain, mechanisms underlying chronic pain development and persistence are still poorly understood. Specifically, white matter (WM) connectivity has remained largely unexplored in pediatric chronic pain. Using diffusion-weighted imaging, this study...

A wide range of neurological diseases with impaired motor functioning of the upper extremities are accompanied by impairments of somatosensory functioning, which are often undescribed but can provide crucial information for diagnostics, treatment selection, and follow-up. Therefore, a reliable description of the functional representation of the dig...

Introduction: Current treatments for chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) pain are suboptimal. Discovery of robust prognostic markers separating patients who recover from patients with persistent pain and disability is critical for developing patient-specific treatment strategies and conceiving novel approaches that benefit all patients. Given that chron...

Compared to the field of anxiety research, the use of fear conditioning paradigms for studying chronic pain is relatively novel. Developments in identifying the neural correlates of pain-related fear are important for understanding the mechanisms underlying chronic pain and warrant synthesis to establish the state-of-the-art. Using effect-size sign...

Background and aims: Contemporary fear-avoidance models of chronic pain posit that fear of pain, and overgeneralization of fear to non-threatening stimuli is a potential pathway to chronic pain. While increasing experimental evidence supports this hypothesis, a comprehensive investigation requires testing in multiple modalities due to the diversity...

Background Acute stress can have an effect on pain sensitivity, yet the direction of the effect – whether it is hypoalgesic or hyperalgesic ‐ is mixed across studies. Moreover, which part of the stress response influences pain sensitivity is still unclear. In the current experimental study, we aim to examine the effect of acute stress on heat pain...

Fear of touch, due to allodynia and spontaneous pain, is not well understood. Experimental methods to advance this topic are lacking, and therefore we propose a novel tactile conditioning paradigm. Seventy-six pain-free participants underwent acquisition in a predictable as well as an unpredictable pain context. In the predictable context, vibrotac...

The relationship between fear and pain is highly complex and there are many mechanisms that facilitate bidirectional influence. There are emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and psychophysiological factors that allow fear to modulate the experience of pain. In addition, the expectancy of pain as well as beliefs about pain can in turn influence fear....

The relationship between fear and pain is highly complex and there are many mechanisms that facilitate bidirectional influence. There are emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and psychophysiological factors that allow fear to modulate the experience of pain. In addition, the expectancy of pain as well as beliefs about pain can in turn influence fear....