Introduction: Chronic low back pain (cLBP) is a leading cause of disability worldwide and is frequently refractory to pharmacological treatment. Mindfulness meditation has been shown to reduce pain through modulation of self-referential, cognitive and affective mechanisms. However, the neural mechanisms supporting the direct and immediate modulation of movement-evoked cLBP by mindfulness...
Chronic pain with psychological comorbidity, especially posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or depression, is a prevalent and costly problem, especially among Veterans. Compassion meditation (CM) is a meditative practice that focuses on developing attentional regulation and the intention to assuage suffering. CM-based approaches show promise in ameliorating physical and mental health...
We measured the safety and efficacy of a treatment protocol that includes Orgasmic Meditation (OM), a structured attention training practice conducted between two people who follow a predefined set of detailed instructions. The practice involves one person gently stroking the clitoris of the other person for 15 minutes while both place their attention on the point of contact and notice what...
This article describes the rationale and the specific methods for an open label pilot trial of 100 mg MDMA in combination with massed exposure therapy for PTSD, a treatment which involves daily exposure therapy sessions for two weeks which has found to be effective. We review the need for novel PTSD treatments and the existing research on MDMA-assisted therapy, and then describe the rationale...
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) commonly co-occur and are associated with more severe symptomatology than either disorder alone, increased risk of suicide, and poorer response to existing treatments. A promising therapeutic intervention is the integration of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and psychotherapy. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)...
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) impacts both individual and relational functioning. Veteran couples are at increased risk of relationship distress due to military stressors such as deployment, family reintegration, and traumatic stress. Although both Cognitive-Behavioral Conjoint Therapy (CBCT) and its brief version (bCBCT) consistently have large effects on reducing PTSD symptoms, these...
Latina mothers' stress is associated with their children's health behaviors and risk for obesity; however, existing pediatric health promotion programs have not focused on maternal stress reduction. Herein we describe a study design that will examine the acceptability and feasibility of Calma, Conversa, y Cría (CCC) a 6-week mindful parenting intervention designed to reduce stress. We present...
There have been few interventions targeted for rural African American (AA) caregivers of persons with dementia despite their unique cultural, geographic, health-related and socio-economic needs, including relatively less access to-and willingness to engage with-formal supports and resources. One effective intervention, Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), has been found to be culturally...
Military service puts service members at risk for moral injury. Moral injury is an array of symptoms (e.g., guilt, shame, anger) that develop from events that violate or transgress one's moral code. We describe adaption of in-person mindfulness training program, Mindfulness to Manage Chronic Pain (MMCP), to address symptoms of moral injury to be delivered live via the web. We discuss how we...
Lumbosacral radiculopathy/radiculitis (LR) or "sciatica" is a commonly intractable sequelae of chronic low back pain (LBP), and challenges in the treatment of LR indicate that persistent pain may have both mechanical and neuropathic origins. Mindfulness-based interventions have been demonstrated to be effective tools in mitigating self-reported pain in LBP patients. This paper describes the...
Mindfulness-based interventions have demonstrated efficacy with regard to diverse psychological symptoms across populations. Few studies have evaluated the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions for firefighters. This pilot randomized clinical trial (RCT) is designed to determine the preliminary efficacy, feasibility, and acceptability of a novel mindfulness-based workshop (entitled...
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and subthreshold PTSD are still major global concerns, especially in developing areas short of mental health resources. Written exposure therapy (WET), a brief 5-session treatment, has been found to be effective in reducing PTSD symptoms, but no studies have examined it in an Eastern context. Mindfulness-based meditation mobile application may be a promising...
Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has been a significant stressor worldwide and reports of psychological distress, depression, sedentary lifestyles, and overall decreased wellbeing are increasing. Yoga practices have been found to improve mental and physical health. The purpose of this randomized controlled trial is to compare Isha yoga practitioners to controls on perceived stress, resilience,...
Approximately 45% of young cancer survivors (18-40 years) are cigarette smokers. Continued smoking after cancer diagnosis leads to lower survival rates. A major logistical problem with smoking cessation efforts in this group is their geographic dispersion which makes them hard to reach. In addition, depression is a major predictor of smoking relapse and its rates are roughly twice as high in...
Depressive symptoms predominate in the course of bipolar disorder (BD) and there is an urgent need to evaluate novel application of repurposed compounds that act on pre-specified treatment targets. Several lines of reasoning suggest that nitrous oxide (N2O) is an ideal medication to study as a potential treatment and as a strategy to identify the underlying pathophysiology of bipolar...
More than eleven million U.S. Veterans are at least 65 years of age, an age group of which almost 20% suffers from clinically significant depressive symptoms. Available pharmacological treatments are suboptimal for patients, including veterans, with late-life depression. Ketamine has emerged as a potentially promising rapid-acting therapy for treatment-resistant depression (TRD). However, few...