This perspectives article explores magical thinking (which is often dismissed as irrational or pathologized) as a potentially valuable personal orientation and resource for people living with chronic pain: as a way to make more sense of their complex and challenging life experience, psychologically as well as socially. Magical thinking entails a broader acceptance of connectivity between...
BackgroundChronic low back pain (CLBP) is prevalent and a multimodal therapy is indicated, including psychological treatment. Effective conventional treatments involve psychoeducation and mindfulness-based body scans, while virtual reality offers superior but temporary pain relief. Augmented Reality (AR), which combines conventional and virtual methods, is a novel therapeutic strategy.MethodsWe...
IntroductionPain habituation, the reduction in response to repeated painful stimuli, is a positive adaptation process, while pain sensitization is linked to chronic pain. Traits like mindfulness and extraversion affect pain processing, but their influence on pain adaptation and potential interactions remains underexplored. This study aimed to examine the relationship between trait mindfulness,...
Introduction Fibromyalgia (FM) is the prototypical nociplastic pain condition, characterized by widespread pain and issues with cognition, mood, and sleep. Currently, there are limited treatment options available that effectively treat FM symptoms. Psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) is an emerging combined drug-therapy intervention, but no studies to-date have investigated PAT for FM. Methods...
Chronic pain is an individual experience with physical and psychological dimensions. Ketamine is used in sub-anesthetic doses to treat chronic pain. We describe a proposed multidisciplinary approach with combined treatment of low-dose ketamine and pain-focused psychological and somatic therapies to benefit quality of life of disabled chronic pain patients. Beyond pain reduction, within the...
Research has shown substantial evidence for the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions in the management of chronic pain. Less evidence is available whether a one-time mindfulness intervention may also be helpful in alleviating acute procedural pain. While anticipating a potentially painful procedure, people may worry about the upcoming pain. We investigated whether the time spent in...
Despite research advances and urgent calls by national and global health organizations, clinical outcomes for millions of people suffering with chronic pain remain poor. We suggest bringing the lens of complexity science to this problem, conceptualizing chronic pain as an emergent property of a complex biopsychosocial system. We frame pain-related physiology, neuroscience, developmental...
BackgroundChronic cancer-related pain (CRP) can have a significant negative impact on quality of life. Mindfulness is hypothesized to mitigate chronic CRP by regulating both physical and emotional resistance to pain. In recent years, there has been interest in the use of virtual reality (VR) to deliver mindfulness meditation. VR provides an immersive and engaging environment, which may enhance...
Mind-body treatments can improve coping mechanisms to deal with pain, improve the quality of life of patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), and reduce perceived pain in some cases. However, responses to these treatments are highly variable, the mechanisms underpinning them remain unclear, and reliable predictors of treatment response are lacking. We employed resting-state blood oxygen...
Responding to the need for innovative, multi-modal, non-pharmacological strategies in chronic low back pain (cLBP) care, this article presents the development and a mixed methods feasibility trial of a manualized Mindfulness-based Dance/Movement Therapy (M-DMT) program for cLBP. The 12-week program is designed as a group therapy, integrating mindfulness principles, creative/expressive dance and...
Chronic pain and depression diagnoses are skyrocketing. There is an urgent need for more effective treatments. Ketamine was recently established to alleviate pain and depression, but many gaps remain in the scientific literature. This paper reports the findings of an observational preliminary study that explored the efficacy of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAPT) for chronic pain/major...
Brachial plexus nerve root avulsion results from complete separation of the nerve root from the spinal cord and is one of the most challenging types of neuropathic pain, coinciding with motor, sensory and autonomic deficits. The severe pain and typical impossibility of root reattachment often leads to requests for amputation. Ibogaine is an indole alkaloid producing psychoactive effects through...
Frontiers in Pain Research2023Ramakrishnan Mani, Divya Bharatkumar Adhia, Sharon Awatere et al.3 citations
Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic secondary musculoskeletal pain condition resulting in disability, reduced quality of life, and high societal costs. Pain associated with knee OA is linked to increased sensitivity in sensory, cognitive, and emotional areas of the brain. Self-regulation training targeting brain functioning related to pain experience could reduce pain and its associated...
In this article, we provide a unique perspective on the use of mindfulness interventions in a whole health framework embedded within the theory of salutogenesis and the concept of painogenic environments. We argue that mindfulness is a valuable tool to bridge exploration of inner experiences of bodily pain with socio-ecological influences on thoughts and emotions. We outline research from...
The phencyclidine-derivative ketamine [2-(2-chlorophenyl)-2-(methylamino)cyclohexan-1-one] was added to the World Health Organization's Model List of Essential Medicines in 1985 and is also on the Model List of Essential Medicines for Children due to its efficacy and safety as an intravenous anesthetic. In sub-anesthetic doses, ketamine is an effective analgesic for the treatment of acute pain...
Pain and depression frequently co-occur. Due to its antidepressant and analgesic properties, ketamine has been used for the management of treatment-resistant depression and pain. This systematic review examined the literature on the efficacy of sub-anesthetic doses of ketamine in individuals experiencing comorbid depression and chronic pain (CDCP), as well as comorbid depression and acute pain...
Background: The effectiveness of hypnosis in reducing pain is well supported by the scientific literature. Hypnosis typically involves verbal suggestions but the mechanisms by which verbal contents are transformed into predictive signals to modulate perceptual processes remain unclear. We hypothesized that brain activity during verbal suggestions would predict the modulation of responses to...