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Neurophysiological Mechanisms Supporting Mindfulness Meditation–Based Pain Relief: an Updated Review

  • Psychological and Behavioral Aspects of Headache and Pain (D Buse, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

This review examines recent (2016 onwards) neuroscientific findings on the mechanisms supporting mindfulness-associated pain relief. To date, its clear that mindfulness lowers pain by engaging brain processes that are distinct from placebo and vary across meditative training level. Due to rapid developments in the field of contemplative neuroscience, an update review on the neuroimaging studies focused on mindfulness, and pain is merited.

Recent Findings

Mindfulness-based therapies produce reliably reductions in a spectrum of chronic pain conditions through psychological, physiological, and neural mechanisms supporting the modulation of evaluation and appraisal of innocuous and noxious sensory events.

Summary

Neuroimaging and randomized control studies confirm that mindfulness meditation reliably reduces experimentally induced and clinical pain by engaging multiple, unique, non-opioidergic mechanisms that are distinct from placebo and which vary across meditative training level. These promising findings underscore the potential of mindfulness-based approaches to produce long-lasting improvements in pain-related symptomology.

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Funding

This work was supported by the NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) (K99/R00-AT008238; R21-AT007247; R01-AT009693; R21-AT010352, FZ).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Alex Jinich-Diamant, Jennifer Baumgartner, Nailea Gonzalez, Gabriel Riegner, Julia Birenbaum, Laura Case & Fadel Zeidan

  2. Department of Cognitive Science, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Alex Jinich-Diamant

  3. College of Social Work, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Eric Garland

  4. Center on Mindfulness and Integrative Health Intervention Development, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Eric Garland

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  1. Alex Jinich-Diamant
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Correspondence to Fadel Zeidan.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Psychological and Behavioral Aspects of Headache with Pain

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Jinich-Diamant, A., Garland, E., Baumgartner, J. et al. Neurophysiological Mechanisms Supporting Mindfulness Meditation–Based Pain Relief: an Updated Review. Curr Pain Headache Rep 24, 56 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-020-00890-8

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