Research

My research is about the pain that so often follows spinal cord injury, and what actually helps people live better despite it. After 17 years living with neuropathic pain myself, I went back to school to study it properly. My doctoral work, completed at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan, in the SCI Action Lab under Dr. Kathleen Martin Ginis, asks a practical question: when medication falls short, what can people actually do, day to day, to take back function and quality of life?

Below is my peer-reviewed work. The short notes under the main studies explain, in plain terms, what each one found and why it matters.

PhD dissertation, University of British Columbia (Okanagan), 2026.
Emotions, Thoughts, Behaviours, and Pain After Spinal Cord Injury: A Behaviour-First Approach to Neuropathic Pain

Lead research

Buren, R. C., Noguchi, K. S., Holtzman, S., & Martin Ginis, K. A. (2026). Psychosocial predictors of spinal cord injury pain: The Canadian Spinal Cord Injury Pain Survey. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2026.04.003
A national survey of Canadians living with SCI pain. It shows that psychological and social factors, not just the injury, strongly predict how severe the pain is and how much it interferes with daily life. How a person relates to their pain matters, and that gives us something to work with.

Buren, R., Baumgart, J. K., & Martin Ginis, K. A. (2026). Changes in pain severity and interference following a behaviour-first self-management intervention for spinal cord injury. Manuscript under review.
My dissertation intervention. It tested a remotely delivered, behaviour-first program that helps people manage SCI pain by changing what they do first, rather than waiting for the pain to lift. This is the science behind the Behaviour First approach I bring to the stage.

Buren, R., Ponzano, M., Adams, N., Jun, J., & Martin Ginis, K. A. (2026). Addressing health inequities in treating neuropathic pain: A scoping review of cognitive behavioural therapies, mindfulness, and meditative-based interventions. Epidemiologic Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1093/epirev/mxag002
A review of the non-drug, mind-body approaches to nerve pain, and a look at who gets left out of that research. It maps what works and where the gaps still are.

Additional peer-reviewed publications

Ponzano, M., Buren, R., Adams, N. T., Jun, J., Jetha, A., Mack, D. E., & Martin Ginis, K. A. (2024). Effect of exercise on mental health and health-related quality of life in adults with spinal cord injury: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 105(12), 2350-2361. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2024.02.737

Cheung, L., Buren, R., Benn, N. L., Alton, C., Craven, B. C., Marzolini, S., & Musselman, K. E. (2025). The feasibility and effect of a peer-facilitated, remote handcycling sport program for aging adults with spinal cord injury or disease: A mixed methods case series. Spinal Cord Series and Cases, 11(1), 26. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41394-025-00721-1

Cheung, L., Benn, N. L., Buren, R., & Musselman, K. E. (2026). Applying an integrated knowledge translation partnership approach during a remote sport program for aging individuals with spinal cord injury: A descriptive qualitative study. Disability and Rehabilitation. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638288.2026.2636456

Adams, N. T., Tong, B., Buren, R., Ponzano, M., Jun, J., & Martin Ginis, K. A. (2024). A scoping review of acute sedentary behaviour studies of people with spinal cord injury. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 21(10), 1380. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21101380