Master Lectures: The Neural and Physiological Mechanisms Supporting Mindfulness–induced Pain Relief

Pain is a multidimensional experience that involves interacting sensory, cognitive, and affective factors, rendering the treatment of chronic pain challenging and financially burdensome. The widespread use of opioids to treat chronic pain has led to an opioid epidemic characterized by exponential growth in opioid misuse and addiction. The staggering statistics related to opioid use highlight the importance of developing, testing, and validating fast–acting non–pharmacological approaches to treat pain. Mindfulness meditation is a technique that has been found to significantly reduce pain in experimental and clinical settings. This master lecture will delineate findings from recent studies and unpublished work demonstrating that mindfulness meditation significantly attenuates pain through multiple, unique mechanisms. Fadel will demonstrate that mindfulness meditation attenuates pain by reducing low–level nociceptive processing through multiple, unique top–down and bottom–up integrated mechanisms. He will also present work showing that mindfulness–based analgesia is distinct from placebo and engages non–opioidergic processes, an important consideration for the millions of chronic pain patients seeking narcotic–free, self–facilitated pain therapy.