Webinar Dr. Morten Hoegh: Neuroscience for clinicians 1.01: On demand webinar

Pain Neuroscience for Clinicians 101 — Dr. Morten Høgh

Modern musculoskeletal care increasingly requires clinicians to understand the neurobiological mechanisms underpinning pain. In this webinar, Associate Professor Dr. Morten Høgh, PhD MSc Pain, leads participants through the key neuroscience principles that shape contemporary pain science. Drawing from the Pain Science in Practice Series (JOSPT) and the European Pain Federation (EFIC) pain curriculum, he outlines how neuroscience helps clinicians interpret clinical observations, refine clinical reasoning, and create more accurate and validating patient narratives.

Rather than focusing solely on biomechanics or tissue-based explanations, the webinar demonstrates how nociception, peripheral sensitization, central sensitization, and descending modulation interact to influence pain perception. Dr. Høgh explains how traditional linear cause-and-effect models fall short of explaining real-world pain experiences and shows why pain must be understood as a complex and dynamic process.

Using clear physiological examples—such as hyperalgesia after tissue injury, neurogenic inflammation, and the neural mechanisms revealed through animal studies—participants gain a structured understanding of how modulation occurs across the neuroaxis.

The session also discusses the limitations of basic science models and reductionistic research designs, emphasizing the challenge of translating laboratory findings to clinical reality. Dr. Høgh encourages clinicians to recognize the gap between controlled neuroscience experiments and the lived experience of patients with acute, persistent, or complex pain.

Finally, the webinar highlights the role of stigma, patient beliefs, cultural factors, and iatrogenic influences in shaping pain behavior and disability.

This webinar is ideal for physiotherapists and other MSK clinicians who want to ground their practice in contemporary pain neuroscience in order to strengthen clinical reasoning, refine patient communication, and align care with the EFIC curriculum and international best practice.

LEARNING GOALS (ENGLISH)

1. Critically analyze the neurobiological foundations of nociception, sensitization, and modulation, integrating basic science principles with complex clinical presentations to enhance advanced clinical reasoning.
2. Evaluate and differentiate peripheral sensitization, classical central sensitization, and descending modulation, using mechanistic evidence from neuroscience to interpret patient symptoms beyond linear tissue-based explanations.
3. Synthesize reductionistic basic science research with multifactorial clinical realities, identifying the methodological limitations of laboratory pain models and their implications for assessment and treatment in physiotherapy.
4. Develop scientifically grounded patient narratives that accurately validate pain experiences—even in the absence of identifiable pathology—by applying terminology and conceptual frameworks from the Pain Science in Practice Series.
5. Appraise the influence of psychosocial, cultural, and iatrogenic factors on pain perception and behavior, integrating these determinants into a holistic and evidence-informed treatment approach.

Meet your Teacher

This webinar is led by Dr. Morten Høgh (Hoegh), Associate Professor at Aalborg University (Denmark). Dr. Hoegh focuses on improving national and international pain education based on the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP). He has co-authored a textbook on pain, and written several book chapters, clinical commentaries and peer-reviewed basic science articles on pain and pain modulation. 

Accreditation

This webinar is accredited by Kwaliteitshuis Fysiotherapie and PQK.

Language of Instruction

This webinar will given in English. 🇬🇧