Chronic Pain Study Group (CPSG) Satellite Dinner Meeting

NEURORHEUMATOLOGY WITH A SPIN: THERAPEUTIC INNOVATION WITH THE CALORIC TEST IN NOCIPLASTIC PAIN

Sunday 17th May | 6 pm - 8 pm

DATE & TIME: Sunday 17 May 2026  |  6:00pm – 8:00pm AEST

VENUE: The Club House at The Beach Hotel, Broadbeach — 8 min walk from the conference venue

DINNER REGISTRATION COST: $130 per person — includes 2-course dinner + 2-hour beverage package

REGISTRATION & ENQUIRIES: For ARA ASM delegates, please register & pay for the CPSG Satellite Dinner Meeting as part of the registering for ARA ASM. Please note limited seats are available & registrations will close on 31 March 2026 or earlier once capacity has been reached.

Presentation Summary

Our sense of balance — though under-recognised across science & medicine — has deep evolutionary, ontogenetic & integrative foundations in brain-behaviour responses that have come to light particularly since the late 20th Century. The caloric test — via the vestibulo-ocular reflex — is a simple, low-cost, low-risk, non-invasive and widely used mainstream neurodiagnostic technique for balance problems & brain death, with a long-standing record of safety since its development over a century ago. The technique is routinely performed for example in primary care clinics by GPs & nurses (for cerumen removal), audiologists, neurologists & ENT physicians.

Over recent decades its renewed transformative potential — through vestibulocortical stimulation (VCS) — is highlighted by remarkable therapeutic benefits shown in adults with often disabling refractory conditions such as phantom limb & central post-stroke pain, migraine, CRPS/allodynia and nociplastic disease (e.g., refractory fibromyalgia & ME/CFS); other neurological disorders (e.g., Parkinson’s disease, minimally conscious state); and severe mental illness (e.g., depression, bipolar & schizophrenia spectrum disorders). This talk will present a high-level overview of the technique’s wide-ranging multimodal effects across mood, pain, cognition, attention, perception, beliefs/insight & mobility — with a practical lens towards accessible, scalable & innovative clinical care for people suffering from chronic primary pain conditions & other complex (comorbid) conditions.

The body of work on VCS therapy trials in nociplastic pain is a close collaboration — now going on six years — between the presenter and A/Prof. Michael Kaplan MD in the Division of Rheumatology (NCT05004194; NCT06559839), Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York, USA). They are currently conducting the world’s first sham-controlled randomised trial of VCS in fibromyalgia (NCT07423377; as senior supervising scientist & principal investigator, respectively).

This body of work also has a broader community and workforce health & wellbeing focus through enhancing occupational rehabilitation and functional outcomes in: (i) safety-critical industries (e.g., Military, Veterans’ & Emergency Services); (ii) professional & participation sports (e.g., concussion); (iii) underserviced & paediatric populations across rural/regional areas & developing countries, including children & adults with neurodevelopmental disabilities; and (iv) restoring capacity (e.g., dementia, palliative care).

PRESENTER: Dr Trung Thành Ngô — The University of Queensland | Tess Cramond Pain & Research Centre

Trung has over 15 years of STEMM capabilities in driving fundamental discovery and clinical translation projects, along with delivering specialist research evaluation services for several large-scale strategic & funding priorities (e.g., principal investigators; medical science associations; multi-institutional national/international partnerships).

With an interdisciplinary synthesis & quality outcomes focus, he is advancing:

(I) Precision Pain Medicine R&D program to delineate genetically supported risk & protective factors, transdiagnostic subtypes/biotypes and novel therapeutic targets for chronic pain & its many comorbidities (e.g., dementia; Parkinson’s disease; psychiatric, sleep & cardiometabolic disorders);

(II) Vestibulocortical stimulation (VCS) therapy trials in these complex conditions and its preventative health utility — i.e., improving insight & reversing maladaptive neuroplasticity/inflammation following injury/trauma (e.g., acquired brain injuries, concussion, PTSD) — with both local & U.S. clinicians across multiple medical disciplines and in other prominent pain presentations (e.g., endometriosis; functional neurological disorders; multiple sclerosis).

Trung also actively supports the Australian entrepreneurship ecosystem through Health Tech Innovation QLD — and AIMOS:  the Association for Interdisciplinary Meta-Research & Open Science — in its continuing commitment to improving research quality, integrity & culture for the meaningful benefit of our broader community. His PhD in Neuroscience was undertaken with Jack Pettigrew MBBS FRS, followed by an NHMRC Clinical Research Fellowship examining a bistable (quantum) switching biomarker of neurocognitive (dys)regulation and VCS in persistent pain, bipolar & depressive disorders.

For any enquiries and non-delegate dinner registrations, please contact Trung directly on 042 111 7258 (or Trung.Ngo@uq.edu.au)