This student-focused session is designed to create a supportive, engaging space for trainees to build confidence in scientific communication, explore career pathways, and connect with peers and clinicians in neuropsychology. The session brings together two complementary components: a research “data-blitz” and a clinician panel discussion.
The research segment features a series of brief, student-led presentations, offering a low-pressure platform to share ideas, proposals, methods, and early findings. Open to students at all stages of training, this format aims to make conference presenting more accessible and less intimidating. Attendees will gain exposure to a diverse range of current and emerging research areas, including work on subjective cognition in the context of a medicinal cannabis trial for endometriosis, psychomotor tests and functional capacity in Huntington’s disease, critical perspectives on diversity in neuropsychology, and clinician experiences of assessing and treating ADHD within early psychosis services. This segment also provides opportunities to connect with peers and identify shared research interests.
The clinician panel brings together neuropsychologists working across a range of practice areas, including acquired brain injury, functional neurological disorder, dementia, neurorehabilitation, and research. Through an interactive Q&A, attendees can ask candid questions and hear practical insights into career pathways, working across different settings and states, and navigating the transition from training to professional practice. Discussion will also touch on workforce realities and clinician wellbeing.
Overall, this session is designed as an approachable entry point into conference participation. By combining peer-led research with real-world clinical perspectives, it aims to support students to broaden their understanding of the field, make meaningful connections, and take practical steps toward their future careers in neuropsychology..

Learning Outcomes
At the conclusion of the research segment, attendees will be able to:
Identify current and emerging research topics, methods, and intervention approaches presented by peers, and reflect on how these may inform their own research or clinical interests.
Recognise diverse approaches to research design and communication through exposure to concise, student-led presentations across a range of topic areas.
Identify opportunities for connection and collaboration by engaging with students working in related areas and initiating follow-up discussions.
At the conclusion of the clinician panel segment, attendees will be able to:
Describe a range of career pathways within neuropsychology and related fields (e.g., ABI, TBI, FND, dementia, research, and neurorehabilitation), including differences across practice settings and Australian states.
Ask informed questions and evaluate insights from clinicians regarding workforce demands, wellbeing, and real-world practice considerations.
Apply panel insights to their own career planning, including identifying next steps for transitioning from student to early-career professional.

Endometriosis is a chronic health condition that can cause difficulties in daily functioning due to its painful symptoms and perceived cognitive sequelae. Chronic pain, fatigue, and low mood, which are common symptoms of endometriosis, are known to impact cognition by affecting attentional resources, but it is possible that endometriosis itself has a direct effect on cognition. Indeed, emerging research indicates that people with endometriosis report a significant perceived impact on their cognition, and initial neuroimaging studies suggest the possibility that people with endometriosis have differences in neural connectivity, putting forward the notion of an “endometriosis brain”. Current treatment methods for endometriosis include over-the-counter pain relief, hormonal treatments, or surgical interventions; however, these are all accompanied by potential side effects. Research is underway on alternative treatments, and one such example is the EndoCann study. The EndoCann study is a randomised controlled trial conducted by Western Sydney University to assess the use of medicinal cannabis in the management of endometriosis pain over a 26-week period, and Macquarie University is investigating how subjective cognition may fluctuate or change over this period. Participants will be allocated to one of the following treatment conditions: a placebo condition, a balanced THC:CBD oil treatment arm, or a CBD oil treatment arm. Existing research on medicinal cannabis demonstrates analgesic, anti-inflammatory, anxiolytic, anti-depressant, and anti-emetic actions, and is often used in other chronic pain conditions to manage pain symptoms. The literature shows mixed evidence on the effects of cannabis and cannabinoid compounds on both objective and subjective cognition. It is possible that by reducing the symptom burden of endometriosis, participants may feel that their cognition has improved; however, there is also the possibility of acute but reversible impairments of cognitive function due to the psychoactive nature of this treatment. This study will use ecological momentary assessment (EMA) data to explore self-reported changes in subjective cognition and assess whether there is a significant difference between participants in the placebo condition and the active treatment conditions.

Background and Rationale: Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal-dominant neurodegenerative condition that causes progressive motor and cognitive decline alongside psychiatric symptoms, which together drive functional loss across the disease course. Cognitive assessment plays a central role in clinical monitoring and research in HD, with psychomotor tests, including The Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT) and Trail Making Test (TMT), among the most used tools in both settings with well-established sensitivity to disease status. While cognitive decline is known to contribute to functional loss in HD, how performance on these specific psychomotor tests map onto areas of everyday functioning has not been established. Our study examines how SDMT and TMT performance translates to everyday functioning in HD, compares their relative predictive utility, and identifies which functional domains/tasks are most at risk when performance is impaired on either task. We aim to provide clinicians with an evidence base for how SDMT and TMT performance translate to a person's everyday function and where to direct recommendations for support.
Methods: Our study draws on data from Enroll-HD, the world’s largest observational and longitudinal study of HD. The available study sample comprised 5163 premanifest HD (i.e., those with confirmed HD genotype but have not yet met threshold for clinical motor diagnosis) and 7636 manifest HD participants (i.e., confirmed clinical motor diagnosis). All participants completed the SDMT, TMT parts A and B and functional outcome measures from Unified Huntington’s Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS) including the Total Functional Capacity (TFC) scale and Functional Assessment (FA). The majority of premanifest participants showed no functional impairment and scored at the ceiling on the TFC and FA, which is a known limitation of these functional measures that were originally developed for use in manifest HD. Analyses in the premanifest group were restricted to the ~587 participants that reported functional decline. In the manifest group, functional decline is a prominent feature, and the full range of functional outcomes was utilised. We used logistic regression models for both HD groups to examine associations between SDMT and TMT performance with functional capacity at the global level and across subdomains/items of the TFC and FA.
Preliminary results and implications: Preliminary analyses indicate significant associations between SDMT and TMT performance with functional capacity across both HD stages, with the SDMT emerging as the strongest predictor at the global and domain level. Data analysis is ongoing and findings will be presented at the conference.

Background & Method: The history of cognitive assessment is steeped in white, affluent, able-bodied hegemony, however, people with marginalised identities have been contributing to the field since its inception. Through a narrative review of some of these contributions to the field, including lesser-known researchers such as Psyche Cattell and Robert L. Williams II, this research explores innovation to cognitive assessment practices and neuropsychological theory. With a focus on contributions made in the mid- to late-1900s, it is argued that individual experiences of marginalised positionality operate as a research influence which drives innovation and ethical practice advancements in the field of clinical neuropsychology.
Analysis: In looking to the past, this research qualitatively examines a framing of marginalised people in the field as proverbial ‘canaries in the coalmine’. The coalmine represents the systemic factors at play, with the coal miners representing all clinicians and community stakeholders. Psychologists representing marginalised identities are viewed as the canaries, vital heralds of danger and simultaneously most at risk of being subjected to systemic harms. These dangers include the literal harms historically enacted against community members due to misuse of cognitive assessments, as well as the less concrete harms done to the field in terms of scientific rigour when there is a lack of diverse perspectives assessing the assumptions underpinning research conclusions. In this framing, all clinicians and community stakeholders are viewed as vulnerable to systemic harm in the ‘coalmine’.
Discussion: In alignment with adjacent research into the tangible benefits of diverse and inclusive workplaces, I conclude that those with experience of marginalisation are often first to identify and call for changes that protect and benefit others, and the field more broadly. In this way, it is vital for these ‘canaries’ to be heard, and heeded, in the evolving approaches to cognitive assessment practices. While ethical arguments for inclusivity as means of supporting equitability are well-established and well-recognised, gaps in diverse representation persist. Therefore, I focus on discussing the costs to the field when diversity is stifled by systemic factors, rather than appealing to the notion of equitability as an ethical imperative. Which groups remain underrepresented in neuropsychology? And what does the field lose without these perspectives?

Early psychosis services provide recovery-focused, continuing care for young people with a first episode of psychosis (FEP), using a transdiagnostic approach to managing co-occurring neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions. Little is known about how attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is assessed and treated within early psychosis services. This qualitative study explored early psychosis clinicians’ perspectives on the assessment and treatment of ADHD. Fourteen Australian early psychosis clinicians (psychiatrists, psychologists, occupational therapists, and social workers) participated in semi-structured interviews, analysed using semantic, inductive reflexive thematic analysis. Six themes were identified: (1) ADHD Matters in Early Psychosis; (2) The Meaning of ADHD is Diverse; (3) Identifying ADHD Feels Elusive; (4) ADHD Care is Inaccessible and Fragmented; (5) Focusing on the Person Amid ADHD Diagnostic Uncertainty; (6) ADHD Comes into Focus Later in Early Psychosis Care. Overall, clinicians viewed addressing ADHD as important. They described responding adaptively to several clinical and systemic dilemmas by leveraging early psychosis infrastructure, including long-term episodes of care and a person-centred, recovery-focused philosophy. Clinicians’ perspectives suggest that early psychosis services are well positioned to support ADHD, though improved guidance and clinician knowledge are needed.