Neurobiological Aspects of Mindfulness in Pain Autoregulation: Unexpected Results from a Randomized-Controlled Trial and Possible Implications for Meditation Research.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience January 1, 2016 Tobias Esch, Jeremy Winkler, Volker Auwärter et al.
A 5-day meditation training focusing on body and breath awareness did not increase pain tolerance more than no intervention in healthy adults. Pain tolerance actually increased in both the meditation and control groups, with a larger increase in the control group. Naloxone infusion showed a trend toward decreasing pain tolerance in both groups. The meditation group made fewer errors on an attention test. Blood samples detected morphine and morphine metabolites sporadically with no clear pattern. The intended link between meditation, attention, mindfulness, and pain tolerance was not supported under conditions designed to avoid placebo effects.