Off The Map: The Shoulder That The Brain No Longer Knows

This session explores the growing body of neuroscience revealing that persistent shoulder pain is not merely a peripheral issue, but one deeply rooted in changes within the brain. Conditions such as frozen shoulder or long-standing rotator cuff-related pain are increasingly being understood through the lens of cortical disruption, altered movement maps, and changes in both somatosensory and somatomotor processing.

Anna Maria will present evidence from functional imaging, motor cortex mapping, and embodied pain science to show how shoulder pain within its broader biopsychosocial complexity can also be conceptualised as a dynamic interaction between cortical representation, sensory input, motor output, and emotional-cognitive modulation.

By understanding how pain disrupts processing and how disrupted processing affects pain we, as practitioner, can begin to support people with shoulder pain with deeper insight, greater compassion, and more individualised approaches.

Learning outcomes:

– Introduction to current emerging evidence on changes in brain processing specific to shoulder pain and frozen shoulder

– Understand how such changes affect pain, perception, sense of self and motor control

– Overview of assessment strategies under a somatosensory and somatomotor framework