Child Body & Brain Lab
We are passionate about making a real difference to the lives of children who are experiencing a disrupted relationship with their body. This can be either due to medical treatments, pain or emotional challenges.
We incorporate multiple methodological approaches to investigate how children relate to their body and how the developing brain creates a representation of the continuously changing body.
This always with the focus on the whole child, and never with either the body, the brain or the mind in isolation and with one question in mind at all times: how can we translate what we find into real improvements in these children's lives?
In other words, we aim to create tangible outcomes to serve clinical applications and procedural pain programs. The effects of (cancer) treatment and/or pain can have long-lasting effects on the child's relationship with his or her body, even after the acute phase. Therefore, we work towards writing information booklets for both parents/guardians and children, for use during treatment at the hospital as well as beyond.
Please read further about specific areas of research on the different tabs.
Thank you, and please don’t hesitate to contact us in case you have any questions or feedback.
With warm regards,
Marjolein and The Child Body & Brain Team.
- Dr Marjolein Kammers
Principal Investigator
Dr Marjolein Kammers
I am a research fellow at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, and an honorary researcher at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and the Royal Children's Hospital. I am an individual member of the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY). I am also a mum of three.
In addition to my research, I am the Program Manager of the Mental Health PhD Program.
Email
marjolein.kammers@unimelb.edu.au
Address
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia
- Winn Ma
Research Assistant
Winn Ma
Committed to continual learning, Winn is a psychology honours graduate interested in youth mental health and early intervention. In particular, she is passionate about facilitating mental health literacy and promoting mental health awareness. In her spare time, Winn enjoys swimming and spends her weekends teaching swimming and water safety to children with special needs.
Email
winn.ma@mcri.edu.au
Address
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia - Lysha Lee
Research Assistant
Lysha Lee
Lysha is a psychology honours graduate and an advocate of physical and mental health & wellbeing across the lifespan. Passionate about research and its translation to therapeutic applicability, she has previously conducted research as part of the Decision Science Hub at Melbourne University and the cardiology department at Austin Health. She aims to pursue a career in the health sciences as a clinician researcher. Outside of work, Lysha is an active member of the powerlifting community in Victoria and enjoys supporting a range of philanthropic initiatives wherever possible.
Email
leeshllzy@gmail.com
Address
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia - Sidney Davies
Research Intern
Sidney Davies
Sidney is a 2019 psychology honours graduate from the University of Melbourne and has a keen interest in childhood mental health and wellbeing. Sidney spends her time working as an administrative assistant for a private psychology clinic in Melbourne as well as working as an ABA therapist, conducting one-on-one behavioural therapy with young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. She hopes to begin her Masters in Clinical Psychology in 2021 and go on to work clinically in regional communities with children and adolescents across a range of mental health issues.
Email
sidneydavies@outlook.com
Address
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia
2021
Lee, L., Ma, W., & Kammers, M. (2021). The rubber hand illusion in children: what are we measuring? Behavior Research Methods. (pdf)
2019
Leake, H.B., Heathcote, L.C., Simons, L.E., Stinson, J., Kamper, S.J., Williams, C.M., Burgoyne, L.L., Craigie, M., Kammers, M., Moen, D., Pate, J.W., Szeto, K., & Moseley, G.L. (2019). Talking to Teens about Pain: A Modified Delphi Study of Adolescent Pain Science Education. Canadian Journal of Pain, DOI: 10.1080/24740527.2019.1682934. [pdf]
2015
Hogendoorn, H., Kammers, M.P.M., Haggard, P., & Verstraten, F.A.J. (2015). Self-touch modulates the somatosensory evoked P100. Experimental Brain Research 233(10), 2845-2858. [pdf]
2011
Kammers, M.P.M., Rose, K, & Haggard, P. (2011). Feeling numb: Temperature, but not thermal pain, modulates feeling of body ownership. Neuropsychologia 49(5), 1316-1321. [pdf]
Mancini, F., Longo, M.R., Kammers, M.P.M., Haggard, P. (2011). Visual distortion of body size modulates pain perception. Psychological Science 22(3), 325-330.[pdf]
2010
Kammers, M.P.M., de Vignemont, F., & Haggard, P. (2010). Cooling the thermal grill illusion through self-touch. Current Biology 20, 1-4. [pdf]
Kammers, M.P.M., Kootker, J.A., Hogendoorn, H., & Dijkerman, H.C. (2010). How many motoric body representations can we grasp? Experimental Brain Research 202, 203-212. [pdf]
Kammers, M.P.M., Mulder, J., De Vignemont, F., Chris Dijkerman, H. (2010). The weight of representing the body: Addressing the potentially indefinite number of body representations in healthy individuals. Experimental Brain Research 204 (3), 333-342. [pdf]
2009
Longo, M.R., Kammers, M.P.M., Gomi, H., Tsakiris, M. & Haggard, P. (2009). Contraction of body representation induced by proprioceptive conflict. Current Biology 19, R727-728. [pdf]
Kammers, M. P. M., Verhagen, L., Dijkerman, H.C., Hogendoorn, H., De Vignemont, F., & Schutter, D. (2009). Is this hand for real? Attenuation of the rubber hand illusion by Transcranial magnetic stimulation over the inferior parietal lobule. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 21, 1311-1320. [pdf]
Kammers, M. P. M., De Vignemont, F., Verhagen, L., & Dijkerman, H.C. (2009). The rubber hand illusion in action. Neuropsychologia 47, 204-211.[pdf]
Kammers, M.P.M., Longo, M.R., Tsakiris, M., Dijkerman, H.C., & Haggard, P. (2009). Specificity and Coherence of Body Representations. Perception 38, 1804-1820. [pdf]
Hogendoorn, H., Kammers, M.P.M., Carlson, T.A., & Verstraten, F.A.J. (2009). Being in the dark about your hand: resolution of visuo-proprioceptive conflict by disowning visible limbs. Neuropsychologia 47, 2698-2703. [pdf]
Longo, M.R., Schüür, F., Kammers, M.P.M., Tsakiris, M., & Haggard, P. (2009). Self-Awareness and the Body Image. Acta Psychologica 132, 166-172. [pdf]
2008
Longo, M.R., Schüür, F., Tsakiris, M., Kammers, M. P. M., & Haggard, P. (2008). What is embodiment? A psychometric approach. Cognition 107, 978-98. [pdf]
2006
Kammers, M. P. M., van der Ham, I. J.M. & Dijkerman, H. C. (2006). Dissociating body representations in healthy individuals: differential effects of a kinaesthetic illusion on perception and action. Neuropsychologia 44, 2430-2436. [pdf]
Schutter, D., Kammers, M. P. M., Enter, D. & van Honk, J. (2006). A case of illusory own-body perceptions after transcranial magnetic stimulation of the cerebellum. Cerebellum 5, 238-240. [pdf]
Montagne, B., Kessels, R. P. C., Kammers, M. P. M., Kingma, E., de Haan, E. H. F., Roos, R. A. C., & Middelkoop, H. A. M. (2006). Perception of emotional facial expressions at different intensities in early- symptomatic Huntington's disease. European Neurology 55, 151-154. [pdf]
We are part of a group of pain scientists and clinicians working to develop a pain education resource for adolescents - the first results of this have recently been published and can be found here.
One of the aims of the lab is to investigate chronic pain in children, and how this interacts with their relationship with their body. If you would like to contribute to this research line, please contact me.
One important aspect of a child's relationship with his or her body is the feeling of body ownership. We often take for granted that we have a body, and that that body is ours. However, this sensation of body ownership can easily be disrupted.
Body ownership is defined as the subjective sensation that my body belongs to “me”. This concept comes from fundamental neuroscience research into how the brain represents the body. Many studies have shown that this seemingly robust feeling of your body being yours can be relatively easily disrupted. When this happens, it has been found to influence a range of important psychological and physiological processes, including 1) the localisation of our limbs in space, 2) homeostatic thermoregulation, 3) motor control, and 4) pain. Importantly, body ownership is not the same as body image. Body image involves how we feel psychologically about our body and its appearance (often in relation to societal ideals) and has been frequently studied in relation to (paediatric) cancer. Body ownership is the sensation of your body belonging to you, and it is fundamental for our everyday psychological as well as motor functioning. Despite its clear importance to development and well-being, to date it has not been investigated in children.
In collaboration with the Children's Cancer Centre at the Royal Children's Hospital, we are currently preparing a study to investigate the sense of body ownership in both healthy children and childhood cancer survivors.
We are currently working on new material - please keep a close eye on this tab for updates.
We would like to hear from you. If you have feedback, suggestions or questions then please do not hesitate to contact us.
Join the lab
The Child Body & Brain Lab has spots for 2020 for excellent, enthusiastic and driven PhD candidates. Please contact us with a CV and background information about yourself if you would like to apply. To check that you meet the university's eligibility and entry requirements to undertake a PhD in MDHS, and for instructions on how to apply, please click here. If you would like more general information about the MDHS PhD course, please click here.
Contact Details
Dr. Marjolein Kammers
Research Fellow, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
Honorary Research Fellow, Murdoch Children's Research Institute
Honorary Research Fellow, Royal Children's Hospital