Altered anterior insula activation during anticipation and experience of painful stimuli in expert meditators.
Neuroimage January 1, 2013 Antoine Lutz, Daniel R McFarlin, David M Perlman et al.
Expert meditators with over 10,000 hours of practice experience pain as intensely as novices but find it less unpleasant. Brain imaging during a mindfulness-like meditation showed that experts had enhanced activity in the dorsal anterior insula and anterior mid-cingulate cortex—part of the salience network—during pain, alongside lower baseline activity in these regions and the amygdala before pain. This pattern was linked to faster neural habituation in pain-related areas. The findings suggest that cultivating experiential openness reduces anticipatory responses to aversive events and increases attentional engagement during pain, leading to quicker habituation.