Abstract
The multi-dimensional nature of pain renders difficult a holistic understanding of it. The conceptual framework of pain is said to be cognitive-evaluative, in addition to being sensory-discriminative and affective-motivational. To compare participants’ brain-behavior response before and after a 6-week mindfulness-based stress reduction training course on mindfulness in relation to pain modulation, three questionnaires (the Dallas Pain Questionnaire, Short Form McGill Pain Questionnaire-SFMPQ, and Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness) as well as resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging were administered to participants, divided into a pain-afflicted group (N = 18) and a control group (N = 16). Our results showed that the pain-afflicted group experienced significantly less pain after the mindfulness treatment than before, as measured by the SFMPQ. In conjunction, an increased connection from the anterior insular cortex (AIC) to the dorsal anterior midcingulate cortex (daMCC) was observed in the post-training pain-afflicted group and a significant correlation was found between AIC-daMCC connectivity and SFMPQ scores. The results suggest that mindfulness training can modulate the brain network dynamics underlying the subjective experience of pain.
Highlights
Pain relates to a sensation that hurts
A 2 × 2 mixed ANOVA on the Short Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SFMPQ) revealed a main effect of time (F = 8.91, p < 0.01), a main effect of group (F = 14.25, p < 0.01), and an interaction of time × group (F = 5.28, p < 0.05)
The post hoc comparisons showed that the change in the composite score of the SFMPQ was significant in the pain-afflicted group (t = 3.05, p < 0.01), but not in the control group (t = 0.82 p = 0.42)
Summary
Thirty-four adult participants were recruited in Taiwan for the fMRI experiment. The remaining sixteen participants selected as the control group scored less than or equal to 1 on the PPI pain index, indicating mild or no pain. These 34 native speakers of Mandarin Chinese (mean age = 38.59, 25 females) were first given an informal interview to ensure that they met the following criteria: (1) right-handedness, (2) normal or correctedto-normal vision, and (3) without a history of any language deficit or learning disability. Our study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of National Taiwan University before the training and the experiments were administered
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