Pain
March 1, 2026
Anita B Amorim, Morgan Gianola, Daniel Barrows et al.
Mindfulness meditation, a slow breathing practice that is predicated on cultivating nonreactive awareness, also reduces pain. The existing literature has been mixed in demonstrating whether mindfulness meditation is more effective than slow breathing alone (ie, sham-mindfulness meditation) at reducing pain. Furthermore, smaller sample sizes in prior work have hindered a clear understanding of...
Pain
January 29, 2026
Nicole Richter, Stefanie Schmidt, Glauce Regina Pigatto et al.
Pain perception involves somatosensory-discriminative and affective-motivational components, mediated by separate brain circuits. Traditional mouse behavioral assays lack the resolution to disentangle this complexity. Recent studies using subanesthetic ketamine doses in the hot-plate test revealed a dissociation between paw lifts (somatosensory) and bites & licks (affective). In this study, we...
Pain
February 1, 2025
James Gerhart, John W Burns, Beverly E Thorn et al.
3 citations
Findings suggest that cognitive therapy (CT), mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), and behavior therapy (BT) for chronic pain produce improvements through changes in putative mechanisms. Evidence supporting this notion is largely based on findings showing significant associations between treatment mechanism variables and outcomes. An alternative view is that treatments may work by...
Pain
September 1, 2024
Yang Zhou, Wanchen Sun, Yuxuan Fu et al.
9 citations
Moderate-to-severe acute postsurgical pain (APSP) can prolong the recovery and worsen the prognosis of patients who undergo spinal surgery. Esketamine and pregabalin may resolve APSP without causing hyperpathia or respiratory depression after surgery. However, there are other risks, such as dissociative symptoms. We designed a randomized controlled trial to investigate the effect of the...
Pain
October 1, 2023
Jonathan N. Davies, Ben Colagiuri, Louise Sharpe et al.
15 citations
Mindfulness apps are becoming popular treatments for chronic pain and mental health, despite mixed evidence supporting their efficacy. Furthermore, it is unclear whether improvements in pain are due to mindfulness-specific effects or placebo effects because no trials have compared mindfulness against a sham control. The objective of this study was to compare mindfulness against 2 sham...
Pain
September 5, 2022
Matthew Lyes, Joel Castellanos, Timothy Furnish et al.
55 citations
Abstract Psychedelic serotonergic agonists such as psilocybin have recently been shown to produce sustained benefit in refractory depression, end of life anxiety, and addiction when administered in hallucinogenic doses and coupled with psychotherapy. Although it has been suggested that similar high-dose protocols may help chronic pain conditions, there are few published clinical trials of...
Pain
July 7, 2022
Gabriel Riegner, Grace Posey, Valeria Oliva et al.
41 citations
ABSTRACT: For millenniums, mindfulness was believed to diminish pain by reducing the influence of self-appraisals of noxious sensations. Today, mindfulness meditation is a highly popular and effective pain therapy that is believed to engage multiple, nonplacebo-related mechanisms to attenuate pain. Recent evidence suggests that mindfulness meditation-induced pain relief is associated with the...
Pain
March 1, 2022
Shana A B Burrowes, Olga Goloubeva, Kristen Stafford et al.
Patients with migraine suffer from high morbidity related to the repeated headache attacks, characteristic of the disorder, poor sleep, and a high prevalence of comorbid psychosocial disorders. Current pharmacological therapies do not address these aspects of migraine, but nonpharmacological treatments such as mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) have been shown to improve both pain and...
Pain
January 25, 2022
Rhonda M Williams, Melissa A Day, Dawn M Ehde et al.
Effective, rigorously evaluated nonpharmacological treatments for chronic pain are needed. This study compared the effectiveness of training in hypnosis (HYP) and mindfulness meditation (MM) to an active education control (ED). Veterans (N=328) were randomly assigned to 8 manualized, group-based, in-person sessions of HYP (n = 110), MM (n = 108), or ED (n = 110). Primary (average pain...
Pain
March 13, 2020
David A Seminowicz, Shana A B Burrowes, A. Kearson et al.
We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of an enhanced mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR+) versus stress management for headache (SMH). We performed a randomized, assessor-blind, clinical trial of 98 adults with episodic migraine recruited at a single academic center comparing MBSR+ (n=50) to SMH (n=48). MBSR+ and SMH were delivered weekly by group for 8 weeks, then bi-weekly for another 8...
Pain
August 13, 2019
Adrián Pérez-aranda, Albert Feliu-Soler, Jesus Montero-Marin et al.
Fibromyalgia syndrome (FM) represents a great challenge for clinicians and researchers because the efficacy of currently available treatments is limited. The present study examined the efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) for reducing functional impairment as well as the role of mindfulness-related constructs as mediators of treatment outcomes for people with FM. 225...
Pain
December 1, 2018
Fadel Zeidan, Tim V Salomons, Suzan R Farris et al.
Interindividual differences in pain sensitivity vary as a function of interactions between sensory, cognitive-affective, and dispositional factors. Trait mindfulness, characterized as the innate capacity to nonreactively sustain attention to the present moment, is a psychological construct that is associated with lower clinical pain outcomes. Yet, the neural mechanisms supporting dispositional...
Pain
2013
Michael Lee, M. Ploner, K. Wiech et al.
Summary fMRI evidence suggests that delta‐9‐tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive component of cannabis, targets the affective aspects of pain in humans by altering the activity and functional connections of the amygdala. Abstract Cannabis is reported to be remarkably effective for the relief of otherwise intractable pain. However, the bases for pain relief afforded by this psychotropic agent...
Pain
October 29, 2012
Marco L. Loggia, Jieun Kim, Randy L. Gollub et al.
319 citations
Neuroimaging studies have suggested the presence of alterations in the anatomo-functional properties of the brain of patients with chronic pain. However, investigation of the brain circuitry supporting the perception of clinical pain presents significant challenges, particularly when using traditional neuroimaging approaches. While potential neuroimaging markers for clinical pain have included...
Pain
February 2011
Stefan Schmidt, Paul Grossman, Barbara Schwarzer et al.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is a structured 8-week group program teaching mindfulness meditation and mindful yoga exercises. MBSR aims to help participants develop nonjudgmental awareness of moment-to-moment experience. Fibromyalgia is a clinical syndrome with chronic pain, fatigue, and insomnia as major symptoms. Efficacy of MBSR for enhanced well-being of fibromyalgia patients...
Pain
2011
Joshua A Grant, Jérôme Courtemanche, Pierre Rainville
Concepts originating from ancient Eastern texts are now being explored scientifically, leading to new insights into mind/brain function. Meditative practice, often viewed as an emotion regulation strategy, has been associated with pain reduction, low pain sensitivity, chronic pain improvement, and thickness of pain-related cortices. Zen meditation is unlike previously studied emotion regulation...
Pain
September 2010
Christopher A Brown, Anthony K P Jones
The aim of mindfulness meditation is to develop present-focused, non-judgmental, attention. Therefore, experience in meditation should be associated with less anticipation and negative appraisal of pain. In this study we compared a group of individuals with meditation experience to a control group to test whether any differences in the affective appraisal of pain could be explained by lower...
Pain
January 2010
Robert Schütze, Clare Rees, Minette Preece et al.
The relationship between persistent pain and self-directed, non-reactive awareness of present-moment experience (i.e., mindfulness) was explored in one of the dominant psychological theories of chronic pain - the fear-avoidance model[53]. A heterogeneous sample of 104 chronic pain outpatients at a multidisciplinary pain clinic in Australia completed psychometrically sound self-report measures...
Pain
September 2007
Lance M McCracken, Jeremy Gauntlett-Gilbert, Kevin E Vowles
An increasing number of studies consider the specific processes by which distressing sensations, thoughts, and emotional experiences exert their influence on the daily functioning of those who suffer with chronic pain. Clinical methods of mindfulness and the processes that underlie them appear to have clear implications in this area, but have not been systematically investigated to this point...
Pain
June 4, 2007
Natalia E. Morone, Carol M. Greco, Debra K. Weiner
544 citations
The objectives of this pilot study were to assess the feasibility of recruitment and adherence to an eight-session mindfulness meditation program for community-dwelling older adults with chronic low back pain (CLBP) and to develop initial estimates of treatment effects. It was designed as a randomized, controlled clinical trial. Participants were 37 community-dwelling older adults aged 65 years...
Pain
December 15, 2004
Nadia Elia, Martin R. Tramèr
564 citations
Ketamine, an N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist, is known to be analgesic and to induce psychomimetic effects. Benefits and risks of ketamine for the control of postoperative pain are not well understood. We systematically searched for randomised comparisons of ketamine with inactive controls in surgical patients, reporting on pain outcomes, opioid sparing, and adverse effects. Data were...
Pain
April 1, 2000
Thomas Graven‐nielsen, Sally Kendall, Karl G. Henriksson et al.
409 citations
Central mechanisms related to referred muscle pain and temporal summation of muscular nociceptive activity are facilitated in fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) patients. The present study assessed the effects of an NMDA-antagonist (ketamine) on these central mechanisms. FMS patients received either i.v. placebo or ketamine (0.3 mg/kg, Ketalar((R))50% decrease in pain intensity at rest by active drug...
Pain
December 1, 1999
James P Zacny, Aisling Conran, Helene Pardo et al.
A number of studies have examined the effects of naloxone on nitrous oxide-induced analgesia with conflicting results. In the present study the effects of a relatively high dose of naloxone was examined to determine its effects on nitrous oxide-induced analgesia, as well as on the subjective and psychomotor effects of nitrous oxide. Fourteen subjects participated in a four-session crossover...
Pain
August 1, 1999
Roger Schmid, Alan N. Sandler, Joel Katz
547 citations
Ketamine hydrochloride is a well known general anesthetic and short acting analgesic in use for almost 3 decades. The role of the NMDA receptor in the processing of nociceptive input has led naturally to renewed clinical interest in N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists such as ketamine. This paper reviews the use and efficacy of low-dose ketamine in the management of acute...
Pain
March 1, 1988
Per Kristian Eide, Kjell Hole
21 citations
The tail-flick and increasing temperature hot-plate tests were employed to study the effects of acute or chronic treatment with zimelidine, alaproclate or chlorimipramine on nociception and response to 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeODMT) in mice. A single dose of the serotonin (5-HT) uptake inhibitors produced antinociception in the hot-plate test but not in the tail-flick test. After...