A mindfulness-based intervention, Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), improved the ability to inhibit responses when exposed to pain-related emotional distractors in adults with chronic pain and long-term prescription opioid use. In a controlled trial, participants in MORE showed greater reductions in errors of commission on an Emotional Go/NoGo Task with pain-related stimuli compared with a support group. More mindfulness practice and increased nonreactivity predicted better emotional response inhibition. Improvements in emotional response inhibition were linked to later reductions in pain severity at 3-month follow-up. The results provide preliminary evidence that MORE enhances inhibitory control under negative emotional interference.
During propofol anesthesia, loss of consciousness (LOC) is accompanied by a loss of auditory novelty responses (local deviance effects) in higher-order cortical areas beyond auditory cortex, while responses to longer-timescale novelty (global deviance effects) are suppressed under sedation and absent after LOC. However, the absence of global deviance effects does not reliably indicate LOC. The study recorded electrocorticographic signals from four hierarchical cortical levels in six neurosurgical patients. Local deviance effects were preserved in all regions except prefrontal cortex during sedation, and after LOC they were lost outside auditory cortex. Global deviance effects were suppressed under sedation and absent after LOC. The loss of local deviance effects in higher-order areas may serve as an alternative biomarker of LOC.
This 12-month randomized controlled trial will test whether adding Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) to usual care for fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is more effective and cost-effective than usual care plus a psychoeducational program (FibroQoL) or usual care alone. The study will enroll 180 adult FMS patients and measure functional, quality of life, distress, and cost outcomes, along with brain structure and function (via MRI) and inflammatory markers (IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, and high-sensitivity CRP) in half the participants. The results are expected to clarify whether MBSR produces brain and inflammatory changes and whether it is a cost-effective add-on therapy for FMS.