Inner peace: MRI scans suggest mindful people may feel less pain
MRI scans studied by researchers at the Wake Forest School of Medicine show that more mindful individuals may feel less pain.
“Mindfulness is related to being aware of the present moment without too much emotional reaction or judgment,” said lead author Fadel Zeidan, PhD, of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in a prepared statement. “We now know that some people are more mindful than others, and those people seemingly feel less pain.”
Zeidan and colleagues sought to determine if mindfulness was associated with lower pain levels. If so, what brain mechanisms were involved?
The researchers analyzed the data of 76 individuals obtained from a 2015 study that compared mindfulness meditation to placebo analgesia. The cohort, who had never meditated completed the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory—a 14-item scale designed to measure mindfulness—to determine baseline mindfulness levels. They then underwent an MRI with “painful” 120-degree heat stimulation.
The team's analysis of the MRI scans found higher dispositional mindfulness during painful heat was associated with greater deactivation of the posterior cingulate cortex—which plays a prominent role in pain and episodic memory retrieval and part of the default mode network. In short, individuals with higher mindfulness ratings had less activation in the posterior cingulate cortex and experienced less pain. Conversely, those with lower mindfulness ratings had greater activation of this part of the brain and felt more pain.
The default mode network extends from the posterior cingulate cortex to the medial prefrontal cortex of the brain, the statement read. Both regions feed information to one another. The network is associated with processing feelings of self and mind wandering.
“Default mode deactivates whenever you are performing any kind of task, such as reading or writing,” Zeidan said. “Default mode network is reactivated whenever the individual stops performing a task and reverts to self-related thoughts, feelings and emotions. The results from our study showed that mindful individuals are seemingly less caught up in the experience of pain, which was associated with lower pain reports.”
Zeidan concluded by noting that increasing mindfulness through mindfulness meditation training, may be an effective way to provide pain relief from those who suffer from chronic pain.
As a senior news writer for TriMed, Subrata covers cardiology, clinical innovation and healthcare business. She has a master’s degree in communication management and 12 years of experience in journalism and public relations.