A recent study published in Biological Psychiatry has found that mindfulness meditation reduces pain through distinct neural pathways, differing from those activated by placebo treatments. The findings highlight the potential of mindfulness as an effective, non-pharmacological intervention for pain management.
The study involved two randomized clinical trials with 115 healthy participants. Researchers divided participants into four groups: one practiced mindfulness meditation, another participated in a sham meditation exercise that focused only on deep breathing, a third received a placebo cream falsely labeled as a pain-relief treatment, and a control group that listened to an audiobook. Each participant completed four 20-minute sessions according to their assigned intervention.
To assess pain responses, researchers applied a 49°C heat stimulus to the participants’ right calf and measured pain intensity and unpleasantness. Brain activity was tracked using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify specific neural patterns linked to pain processing.
The research team evaluated three neural pain signatures: the Neurologic Pain Signature (NPS), which reflects the direct sensory experience of pain; the Negative Affective Pain Signature (NAPS), which relates to emotional pain perception; and the Stimulus Intensity Independent Pain Signature-1 (SIIPS-1), which is linked to cognitive factors such as pain anticipation and placebo effects.
The study found that mindfulness meditation significantly reduced both NPS and NAPS responses compared to the placebo cream, sham meditation, and control group. This result indicates that mindfulness meditation effectively diminishes both the sensory and emotional dimensions of pain. In contrast, the placebo cream influenced only the SIIPS-1 signature, suggesting its effect was driven by cognitive modulation and expectation rather than direct sensory or emotional changes.
“These results challenge the idea that mindfulness meditation’s pain-relieving effects are merely due to placebo,” said lead investigator Fadel Zeidan, Ph.D., from the University of California San Diego. He emphasized that mindfulness meditation “is able to directly modify how we experience pain in a way that uses no drugs, costs nothing, and can be practiced anywhere.”
While the study focused on healthy individuals, researchers suggest further studies are needed to determine how mindfulness meditation may benefit those with chronic pain conditions. The findings suggest that mindfulness could provide a valuable alternative to pharmacological pain treatments by directly influencing neural pain pathways.
The study was conducted by a research team led by Dr. Fadel Zeidan from the University of California, San Diego, with contributions from Gabriel Riegner and other collaborators specializing in neuroscience and pain research.
