January Circus Smart Speaker Series – Bendy Body; Bendy Brain
Posted on January 9, 2024
Join hypermobility and brain science expert Dr. Jessica Eccles in the January Circus Smart Speaker Series lecture!
Brain and body are dynamically coupled. Dr Eccles believes that the false dichotomy between body and brain hinders our holistic understanding of human experience, holds back research and perpetuates stigma. She will use the presence of a common bodily variant of connective tissue (joint hypermobility) to demonstrate such brain-body links and how they may relate to the experience of circus performers.
** RECORDING AVAILABLE ** for one week afterwards
Dr. Eccles will draw on her prize-winning work in the field of hypermobility/EDS and hopes to encourage curiosity and challenge stereotypes!
Jessica Eccles trained in medicine at University of Cambridge and University of Oxford, completing a BA in The History and Philosophy of Science, sparking a keen interest in philosophy of mind and brain-body interactions, and since graduation from medical school has pursued a combined academic clinical path at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. As an MRC Clinical Research Training Fellow she completed her PhD in the relationship between joint hypermobility, autonomic dysfunction and psychiatric symptoms and following an NIHR Academic Clinical Lectureship, and appointment as Senior Clinical Lecturer at BSMS, she is now a Reader in Brain-Body Medicine in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at BSMS. She holds an honorary clinical contract with Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust where she works in the Neurodevelopmental Service.
