Neurophysiological Mechanisms Supporting Mindfulness Meditation-Based Pain Relief: an Updated Review.
Current Pain and Headache Reports August 17, 2020 Alex Jinich-Diamant, Eric L Garland, Jennifer Baumgartner et al.
Mindfulness meditation reduces pain through brain processes that differ from placebo and vary with meditative training. Neuroimaging and randomized controlled studies show that mindfulness-based therapies reliably lower both experimentally induced and clinical pain by engaging multiple, unique, non-opioidergic mechanisms. These effects occur across a spectrum of chronic pain conditions and involve psychological, physiological, and neural modulation of how sensory events are evaluated and appraised. The findings highlight the potential of mindfulness-based approaches for producing long-lasting improvements in pain-related symptoms.