2010 - 2011 Department of Anaesthetics, University of Oxford, U.K. Post-doctoral research fellow, Collaborations with the Department of Psychiatry 2006 - 2010 DPhil, University of Oxford Department of Psychiatry                         Supervisors: Professor Guy M. Goodwin, Professor Irene Tracey, Dr Emily A. Holmes Groups: Pain Imaging Neuroscience Group (PaIN), Experimental Psychopathology and Cognitive Therapies Research Group (EPACT) Awards: Overseas Research Student award, Lord Florey Scholarship of the Berrow Foundation (Lincoln College) 2008 University of Lausanne & Geneva, Switzerland Diploma in Psychosomatic & Psychosocial Medicine 2005-2006 University Hospital Geneva Resident, Internal Medicine Out-patient Clinic, Department of Community Medicine 2002-2005 University Hospital Geneva Resident, Department of Internal Medicine 2000-2006 Society for Clinical Hypnosis, Switzerland Training Course & Supervision in Clinical Hypnosis 2002 University of Geneva, Faculty of Medicine , Switzerland Federal Diploma of Medicine and Surgery

After training in internal medicine (M.D. Switzerland, 2002) I was awarded Scholarship to read for a Ph.D. in Psychiatry at the University of Oxford. Using a multimodal approach including conventional psychological methods as well as functional MRI, I am investigating the interactions of pain perception with cognition and mood. My project aims to explore different aspects of the current cognitive-behavioural models of chronic pain (Wade 1992, Price 2000, Sharp 2001). One part of my research is investigating interactions between mood, pain related cognitions (i.e. catastrophizing), cognitive biases (i.e. interpretation biases) and pain suffering. Another part is focusing on the form of pain related cognitions, exploring differences between mental imagery and verbal thoughts. 

Conference presentations

Berna C., Reinecke A, Holmes E.A., Goodwin G.M., Tracey I. The effect of personality on central pain processing. Poster at the VIth Congress for Pain in Europe, Lisbon, 9-12^th September 2009

Berna C, Holmes EA., Goodwin GM., Tracey I. Does negative mood make people more prone to worrying about pain ? Oral presentation in the Symposium “Cogito, ergo I can suppress affect - a symposium on worry in honour of Tom Borkovec”, 38th Annual congress of the European Association for Cognitive Behavioural Therapies, Helsinki, Finland, September 11^th 2008.

Berna C., Leknes S., Holmes EA., Goodwin GM., Tracey I. An fMRI study of the effects of negative mood on central pain processing. Poster at the 12^th World congress of the International Association for the Study of Pain, Glasgow, UK, August 17^th-22^th 2008.

Berna C, Holmes EA., Goodwin GM. A new repeated measure to assess interpretation biases. Oral presentation in the Symposium "New approaches in investigating biased interpretation in mental disorders", 36^th Annual Conference of the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies, Edinburgh, UK, July 16^th-19^th 2008.

Scholarships

2010-11 Eugenio Litta scholarship from the “Fondation Genevoise de Bienfaisance Valeria Rossi di Montelera”, Switzerland
2006-9  Lord Florey - Berrow Scholarship, Lincoln College, University of Oxford, U.K.
2006-9  Overseas Research Student Award Scheme, funded by the Higher Education  Funding Council for England, UK  Awards
2009  Nomination for best poster Certificate Award, meeting of the European Federation of the IASP, Lisbon 2009. 
2005  « Prix Qualité », Quality-Control Project Award, University Hospital Geneva, Switzerland, shared with Drs. M. Louis-Simonet, M Kossowsky and Prof. J.-M. Gaspoz.

Research & Travel Grants
 
2010 IASP financial support to attend the 13th World Congress on Pain, Montreal, Canada
2010 Grindley Travel Grant of the British Experimental Psychology Society to attend the 6th World Congress of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies , Boston, USA.
2008  Brain Travel Grant to attend the 12th World Congress of the International  Association for the Study of Pain, Glasgow, U.K.
2007-9 Lincoln College Graduate Research Grant, University of Oxford, U.K.

Publications

Berna C., Desmeules J. Cognitive and affective modulation of pain perception: mechanisms of certain clinical approaches revealed by neuroscience. Rev. Med Suisse 2009; 5: 1352-5.

Berna, C.; Leknes, S.; Holmes, E.A.; Edwards, R.R.; Goodwin, G.M.; Tracey, I. Induction of Depressed Mood Disrupts Emotion Regulation Neurocircuitry and Enhances Pain Unpleasantness Biological Psychiatry, Volume 67, Issue 11, June 2010, Pages 1083-1090 http://top25.sciencedirect.com/subject/neuroscience/18/journal/biological-psychiatry/00063223/archive/27/

Campbell CM, Kronfli T, Buenaver LF, Smith MT, Berna C., Haythornthwaite JA, Edwards RR. Situational versus dispositional measurement of catastrophizing: associations with pain responses in multiple samples. J Pain. 2010; 11(5):443-453

Awards

Contact

 cberna@fmrib.ox.ac.uk