Ryan Laughton

[email protected]

Research interests

Thesis title:

Pain Perception in Elite Athletes.

Supervisory Team

Dr Flavia Cardini

Dr Jane Aspell

Dr Francesca Cavallerio

Research Group

Ryan is a member of our Body and Self Group which forms part of our ARU Centre for Mind and Behaviour.

Summary of Research

Prevention of overuse injuries in sport is an area of research that has been gaining interest due to the impact of such injuries on athletes’ wellbeing, as well as performance and overall clubs’ performance. Existing research mainly focused on recording overuse injuries while the causes behind them only received scarce attention.

This project will aim to identify the mechanisms whereby pain is processed and recognized in gymnasts. This could benefit the entire sport community because of the high risk of increased injury in this population. Additionally, investigating gymnasts’ perception of pain has the potential to develop a prevention system for overuse injuries (currently non-existent), and positively impact and prevent several other issues affecting young gymnasts.

Selected recent publications

Todd, J., Aspell, J. E., Barron, D., Toh, E. K. L., Zahari, H. S., Khatib, N. A. M., Laughton, R. & Swami, V., 2020. Greater gastric interoception is associated with more positive body image: Evidence from adults in Malaysia and the United Kingdom. Body Image, 34, 101-111.

Swami, V., Laughton, R., Grover, S. & Furnham, A., 2019. Asexuality is inversely associated with positive body image in British adults. Heliyon, 5(9).