Speakers

Peter Fonagy, OBE, Professor of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Developmental Science, Head of Division for Psychology and Language Sciences, UCL; Chief Executive of the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families and Executive Clinical Director, UCLPartners Mental Health and Wellbeing Programme.

His clinical and research interests lie in early attachment relationships, social cognition, borderline personality disorder and violence. A central focus has been an innovative research-based psychodynamic therapeutic approach, mentalization-based treatment, which was developed in collaboration with a number of clinical sites in the UK and USA. Publishing over 630 scientific papers and 21 books.

Richard J. Davidson, PhD. William James and Vilas Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry and Founder & Director of the Center for Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Founder and Chief Visionary for Healthy Minds Innovations, Inc.
Davidson received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Psychology in 1976. Davidson’s research is broadly focused on the neural bases of emotion and emotional style and methods to promote human flourishing including meditation and related contemplative practices. He has published over 573 articles, numerous chapters and reviews and edited 14 books. He is the author (with Sharon Begley) of "The Emotional Life of Your Brain" published in 2012 and co-author with Daniel Goleman of “Altered Traits” published in 2017. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2006. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2017 and appointed to the Governing Board of UNESCO’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) in 2018. In 2014, Davidson founded the non-profit, Healthy Minds Innovations, which translates science into tools to cultivate and measure well-being.

Peter Henningsen MD, Professor and Head, Chair of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy. Technical University of Munich, University Hospital, Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy.
Professor Henningsens research activities and major clinical interests are somatoform disorders/ functional somatic syndromes: diagnostic, therapeutic and health care studies.

Sir Simon Wessely FRS is the Regius Chair of Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IOPPN), part of King’s College London (KCL), the first and only such chair in the United Kingdom. He is also a Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley and also King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts.
After studying medicine and History of Art at Cambridge, he finished his medical training at Oxford 1. He obtained the MRCP in Newcastle, before moving to London to train in psychiatry at the Maudsley. He is an active clinical academic psychiatrist, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (1999) and became a Fellow of the Royal Society (2021). He is a Past President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (2013-17) and the Royal Society of Medicine (2017-2020). He chaired the government’s Independent Review of the Mental Health Act (2017-19), soon to be law. He was Interim Dean of the IOPPN (2022-23) and is now a Non-Executive Director of NHS-England.
After a Master’s and Doctorate in epidemiology, his research career began in unexplained symptoms and syndromes and then military health. In 2003 he founded the King’s Centre for Military Health Research. He remains the Honorary Consultant Advisor in Psychiatry to the British Army and works with several charities for Veterans. He was knighted in 2013 for services to military health and psychological medicine. Sir Simon was the first Director of the PHE NIHR Health Protection Research Unit for Emergency Preparedness and Response (2014-2021), which was been very active during the COVID crisis, and continues to have a broad interest in how people and populations react to adversity and occupational health and well-being. He has over 1000 publications, with an H index of 110 (Scopus), 150 (Google), and is a “Highly Cited Researcher”, with >110,000 citations.
However, if you are a follower of “Desert Island Discs” you will know he is a season ticket holder at Chelsea and his favourite occupation is arguing in Viennese cafes.

Mats Lekander works in the intersection between psychology and biomedicine. In particular, he studies the interaction between the brain and the immune system and the role of behavior in this interaction in health as well as disease. A particular interest lies in how the immune system affects brain and behavior, as is investigated in a model of experimental inflammation through the injection of a bacterial molecule (LPS) in healthy humans. Studies address both how acute and chronic inflammation affects sensitivity to pain, fatigue and subjective health. Connected to the research on the inflammation-induced sickness response is to investigate if and how people can detect sickness in others, and how this affects behavior. Yet another research focus relates to behavioral interventions for stress-related disorders and fatigue.

Thomas Chelimsky directs the new VCU Comprehensive Autonomic Center, an interdisciplinary program that crosses Neurology, Pediatrics, PM&R, Psychology, Cardiology and others. He enjoys diagnosing and treating all types of autonomic disorders across all age groups, as well as research in this area for which he has been funded by NIH since 2009 to study the interface between chronic pain and autonomic dysregulation. He has over 90 publications and chapters. In his initial faculty appointment at Case Western Reserve University under Robert Daroff, he opened the second autonomic lab in the country in 1993. He also directed the Case Pain Center from 1994 to 2004. This experience led to founding and becoming CEO of PainSTakers, an educational company currently dedicated to training doctors, PT’s and behaviorists in the non-pharmacological approach to chronic pain management. His current research focuses on the brain abnormalities that underlie functional autonomic disorders such as postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and related overlapping pain conditions.

Luana Colloca is an Mpower Distinguished professor and the Director of the Placebo Beyond Opinion Center at the University of Maryland, School of Nursing, Baltimore. Dr. Colloca holds an MD, a master’s degree in Bioethics and a PhD in Neuroscience. She completed her post-doc training at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden and a senior research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, USA. Over the last few decades, Dr. Colloca conducted studies on the behavioral, neural, and pharmacological mechanisms of pain modulation related to placebo and nocebo effects. Her lab has developed an interest in combining music with technologies such as virtual reality investigating the underlying mechanisms and applications for pain related outcomes. She has published in top-ranked international journals including Biological Psychiatry, Pain, Nature Neuroscience, JAMA, Lancet Neurology, Science and NEJM. Her research has been cited over 17100 times (H-index 61) and featured on The National Geographic, The New Scientist, Washington Post, Science daily, Boston Globe, The New Yorker, Nature, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, News and World Reports and USA Today among others. She is committed to science dissemination and this includes a TEDx talk and an open-access book with Oxford University Press.

https://www.ted.com/talks/luana_colloca_are_placebos_the_solution
https://academic.oup.com/book/54240

Pekka Louhiala has a background in medicine and philosophy. He worked full-time as a doctor in 1984-1991 and part-time in 1992-2021. He has held various teaching positions at the University of Helsinki between 1992-2019 and worked as Professor of Philosophy of Medicine and Medical Ethics at the University of Tampere from 2020 until retirement in 1/2024. He started his research career in epidemiology but moved primarily to medical ethics and philosophy of medicine in the late 1990’s. His latest research has addressed conceptual issues in medicine (e.g., the concepts of placebo, evidence-based medicine and CAM, complementary and alternative medicine). He is an award-winning teacher and author and has given lectures and courses across disciplines (medicine, health sciences, social sciences, philosophy) both nationally and internationally.

Helena Liira MD, PhD works as Chief Physician in Helsinki University Hospital (HUS). She is a specialist in general practice and occupational health. In 2019, she was responsible for founding of the Clinic for Functional Disorders at HUS, a clinic first of its kind in Finland. In 2021, she started the Clinic for the long-term effects of Covid-19 at HUS. In 2022, HUS won a 7 m€ EU Horizon grant for Long Covid research and currently Helena Liira works as Coordinator of the EU project. She is the principal investigator of cohort studies at both clinics and a randomized controlled trial, which studies self-management interventions for functional disorders. During 2014-2016 she was Professor of General Practice and Head of School in University of Western Australia in Perth. Helena Liira has a strong interest in clinical medicine and clinical epidemiology.

Jon Stone is Professor of Neurology at the University of Edinburgh and Consultant Neurologist with NHS Lothian.

Jon was a medical student in Edinburgh before working in Oxford, Leeds and Newcastle and then returning to Scotland. Since 1999 Jon has promoted a new transparent, pragmatic and multidisciplinary approach to FND which had been a neglected and stigmatised problem

In 2009 he made the first website (and now app) for patients with FND at www.neurosymptoms.org which is now widely used across the world. He has published over 350 articles in the area including large cohort, mechanism and treatment studies. and led on new diagnostic criteria for FND in DSM-5 and ICD-11. He is the first Secretary and co-founder, with Mark Hallett and Alan Carson of the new international FND society (www.fndsociety.org).

His awards include the Jean Hunter prize from the Royal College of Physicians (2014), the Royal College of Psychiatry President’s Medal (2017), the Ted Burns Humanism in Neurology Award from the American Brain Foundation (2020) and the John Walton Lecture Award from the Association of British Neurologists (2022).

Weblinks
www.neurosymptoms.org;
www.fndsociety.org;
https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/dr-jon-stone

Markku Sainio, MD, PhD, specialist and adjunct professor in Neurology. He is the chief physician at the Outpatient Clinic for Persistent Symptom Rehabilitation at Helsinki University Hospital, Finland. Dr. Sainio has studied environmental intolerance to indoor air. The publications are on its prevalence, characterization and intervention. Since then, he has been active to promote the identification and rehabilitation of functional disorders in the Finnish health care. He has had a central role in the foundation and development of the clinic for functional disorders.

Eija Kalso, MD, DMedSci, graduated from the University of Helsinki where she also defended her doctoral thesis. She is a specialist in anaesthesiology and with special competence in pain medicine. She did her postdoctoral studies at the University of Oxford and has worked as clinical lecturer and later as visiting professor at the Karolinska Institute. She has been full professor in Pain Medicine at the University of Helsinki since 2004. Eija Kalso served as the president of the International Association for the Study of Pain in 2010-2012.

The main research interests of Eija Kalso include pharmacology of pain, pathophysiology of neuropathic pain, complex regional pain syndrome and fibromyalgia, genetics of pain, neurostimulation and imaging, the role of sleep in pain, and understanding why acute pain sometimes becomes persistent. The years of building up a multidisciplinary pain clinic were seminal for understanding the biospsychosocial nature of pain.

Mark Edwards (MBBS, BSc (Hons), PhD, FRCP) is Professor of Neurology and Interface Disorders at King’s College London and Honorary Consultant Neurologist at The Maudsley and King’s College Hospitals.

He has a specialist clinical and research interest in Movement Disorders and Functional Neurological Disorder (FND). He did his PhD with Professor John Rothwell and Professor Kailash Bhatia at the UCL Institute of Neurology, studying the pathophysiology of genetic dystonia. Following completion of neurology training he became a Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Neurologist at UCL and the National Hospital for Neurology. After moving to St George’s in 2015 he expanded this work to develop one of the first integrated diagnostic and treatment services for FND alongside continued research work into the pathophysiology of the disorder and development and testing of novel treatments, including the first randomised trial of specialist physiotherapy for functional movement disorders. He was appointed as Professor of Neurology and Interface Disorders at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London and Consultant Neurologist at the Maudsley and King’s College Hospital from September 2022.

Qasim Aziz started his research career at the University of Manchester and obtained his PhD in 1996. He held posts of Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and Professor of Gastroenterology at the University of Manchester, and is now Professor of Neurogastroenterology at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry at Queen Mary, University of London since 2006 and is the director of the Wingate Institute of Neurogastroenterology.
Professor Aziz’s research is aimed at understanding the neurophysiological basis of human brain-gut communication. He has made an important contribution to the understanding of how gut pain is processed in the brain, and how both inflammation/injury to gut nerves and psychological factors can lead to the development of chronic gut pain. He has also pioneered the concept of the link between heritable non-inflammatory connective tissue disorders and functional GI disorders.
Professor Aziz has obtained national and international awards for his research the two most important being the British Society of Gastroenterology Research Gold Medal and the American Gastroenterology Association, Janssen Award for Basic and Clinical Research. He has published numerous original articles in reputed medical journals such as Nature Medicine, Nature Neuroscience, Lancet and Gastroenterology. He has held the positions of Chairman, Neurogastroenterology and Motility Section of the British Society of Gastroenterology, member of executive committee of European Society of Neurogastroenterology and Motility, Member Education Committee of United European Gastroenterology Federation and was co-lead for the 2013 Global Campaign against Visceral Pain launched by the International Association for the Study of Pain and is currently co-lead for developing the WHO ICD-11 classification of visceral pain.

Gisela Chelimsky, MD, is Professor of Pediatrics at the Virginia Commonwealth University. She is the chief of Pediatric Gastroenterology at Children’s Hospital of Richmond. She directs the Pediatric Autonomic program. Dr. Chelimsky was previously Professor of Pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin (2012-2022) and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland (1999-2012) where she also served as Director of Pediatric Autonomic Disorders Program. A graduate of Medical School at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dr. Chelimsky completed residency in Pediatrics and pediatric gastroenterology fellowship at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland Ohio (1990-1996). Dr. Chelimsky joined the faculty at Case Western in 1996 and rose to the rank of Professor in 2011. She is also board certified in Autonomic Disorders.

Dr. Chelimsky is a pioneer in pediatric autonomic disorders and one of the few board certified pediatric autonomic specialists in the country. She has developed the first autonomic program at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital. She has now developed the autonomic program at VCU. She has served as the chair of the pediatric committee and as a board member at the American Autonomic Society (2016-2019). She currently serves as a member of the UCNS Certification Committee writing the board questions for the autonomic disorders board.

Dr. Chelimsky has published > 70 original and review articles, contributed to 26 books or chapters, and made multiple presentations at regional, national and international meeting. Her work has focused on functional gastrointestinal disorders and understanding the inter-relations between the brain-gut axis and the comorbid conditions including joint hypermobility and postural tachycardia syndrome that come with these disorders.

Markku Partinen, MD, PhD, FAAN, is currently Medical Director of the Terveystalo Helsinki Sleep Clinic, and PI of Sleep Medicine at Institute of Clinical Medicine, Clinicum, University of Helsinki, Finland. He is a neurologist with special competence in sleep medicine and traffic medicine. He obtained his medical degree in 1975 and his Diplome d’Université de Docteur en Medecine in Montpellier, France in 1977. He received his PhD in 1982 in Helsinki, Finland. He has been a postdoc at Stanford University, USA, in 1985-86, a visiting professor in Bologna, Italy in 1987. His main research interests are sleepiness, fatigue, narcolepsy, insomnia, dysautonomia, ME/CFS and lately also Long COVID. He has published more than 380 original articles in peer reviewed Journals in addition to writing many book Chapters and editing several books. His Hirsch factor (H-factor) is 70 in ISI Web of Sciences, 77 in Scopus and 100 in Google Scholar. He has served in the Editorial Boards of several International Journals including Sleep, Journal of Sleep Research and Sleep Medicine. He has had many Board positions in different research societies including Coordinating Secretary of the World Federation of Sleep Research Societies (WFSRS), Vice-President of the European Sleep Research Society (ESRS) and Founding member and President of the World Association of Sleep Medicine/ World Sleep Society (WASM/ WSS; ). He has chaired the International COVID Sleep Collaboration (ICOSS) since March 2020.

Judith Rosmalen is appointed as a professor in psychosomatic medicine at the departments of Psychiatry and Internal medicine of the University Medical Center Groningen. She studied medical biology (University of Utrecht) and psychology (University of Leiden), and obtained her PhD on interactions between immune and endocrine system (Erasmus University Rotterdam). Her multidisciplinary research focusses on interactions between biomedical and psychosocial aspects of health problems, with a focus on persistent somatic symptoms. In her studies, she uses both epidemiological and quantitative methodologies as well as qualitative approaches. Rosmalen is President of the Dutch National Network on Persistent Somatic Symptoms (NALK) and Vice President of the European Association of Psychosomatic Medicine (EAPM). She is also the projectleader of the Innovative Training Network Encompassing Training in fUnctional Disorders across Europe (ETUDE).