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 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.
Comparable studies
Other systematic reviews and meta-analyses on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-being Diverse adult clinical populations | 2014 | Meta-analysis | n = 3,515 |
| Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Stress Management in Healthy People: A Review and Meta-Analysis Healthy subjects | 2009 | Systematic review and meta-analysis | |
| The psychological effects of meditation: A meta-analysis. Nonclinical groups of adult meditators | 2012 | Meta-analysis | n = 163 |
| Efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy in Prevention of Depressive Relapse Adults with recurrent depression in full or partial remission | 2016 | Meta-analysis of individual patient data from randomized controlled trials | n = 1,258 |
| Mindfulness‐Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness‐Based Cognitive Therapy – a systematic review of randomized controlled trials | 2011 | Systematic review |
Citations in the library
Cites 7
- A systematic review of neurobiological and clinical features of mindfulness meditations Psychological Medicine November 27, 2009
- A systematic review of the neurophysiology of mindfulness on EEG oscillations Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 2015
- Mindfulness Meditation and Psychopathology Annual Review of Clinical Psychology December 11, 2018
- Meditation reduces pain-related neural activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, insula, secondary somatosensory cortex, and thalamus Frontiers in Psychology December 16, 2014
- Mindfulness-Based Pain Management (MBPM) for Chronic Pain: a Randomized Clinical Trial Mindfulness December 1, 2022
and 2 more in the library