State of the art in EEG signal features of mindfulness-based treatments for chronic pain.
D Duran, P Arpaia, G D'Errico, Licia Grazzi, P Lanteri, N Moccaldi, Alberto Raggi, R Robbio, E Visani
Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology August 1, 2025 DOI: 10.1007/s10072-025-08145-3 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Systematic review Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Chronic pain Electroencephalography Non-pharmacological treatment |
| Citations | 2 |
| Key findings | Pain-related evoked potentials correlate with mindfulness-based treatment, and higher baseline theta power is associated with greater improvement in depression. |
Abstract
A systematic review of electroencephalographic (EEG) correlates of Mindfulness- based treatment for chronic pain is presented. Recent technological advances have made EEG acquisition more accessible and also reliable. EEG monitoring before, during, and after treatment might support efficacy assessment and enable real- time adaptive intervention. The preliminary research extracted 131 papers from 6 scientific search engines. The application of the exclusion criteria led to the selection of 4 papers, indicating that the topic is still unexplored and further investigations are required. The collected papers exhibited great variability making challenging the comparison, nevertheless promising EEG correlates emerged. In particular, pain-related evoked potentials correlate with Mindfulness-Based treatment. EEG source analysis revealed the prevalent involvement of regions modulating emotional responses. In addition, higher baseline theta power was associated with greater improvement in depression when Mindfulness-based treatments are administered. This last result makes EEG also suitable for evaluating which patients can benefit most from mindfulness-based treatments.