ArticlePain medicine (Malden, Mass.)2020
Brief Self-Compassion Training Alters Neural Responses to Evoked Pain for Chronic Low Back Pain: A Pilot Study.
Article in Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 43 citations in OpenAlex.
- Changes in Interoception in Mind-body Therapies for Chronic Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of behavioral medicine · 2024Pooled it
- What are the benefits of cultivating self-compassion in adults with low back pain? A systematic review.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Pooled it
- Effects of compassion training on brain responses to suffering others.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2021Trial
- Virtual Reality-Based Pain Modulation in Subacute Musculoskeletal Injury: Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study of Neural and Behavioral Correlates.JMIR serious games · 2026Article
- Psychological Interventions for the Treatment of Patients with Chronic Dermatoses: A Systematic Literature Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Neural regulation of pain anticipation is associated with mindful behavior change in patients with anxiety or depression: A pilot study.Psychiatry research. Neuroimaging · 2025Article
- Shared neural signatures in Functional Neurological Disorder and Chronic Pain: a multimodal narrative review.BMJ neurology open · 2025Article
- fMRI-based explanations for how meditation could modulate pain processing.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Self-compassion and association with distress, depression, and anxiety among displaced Syrians: A population-based study.PloS one · 2024Article
- Implications for a mindfulness-enhanced positive affect induction: A brief commentary toward acute pain management.Journal of health psychology · 2024Article
- Childhood adversity severity modulates the associations between adaptive psychological changes and amygdala volumetric changes in response to behavioral interventions.Journal of affective disorders reports · 2024Article
- Dynamic processes of mindfulness-based alterations in pain perception.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Review
- Mind-body practices, interoception and pain: a scoping review of behavioral and neural correlates.Annals of medicine · 2023Article
- Hatha yoga is more effective in improving kinesiophobia and subjective well-being when combined with self-compassion meditation in people with CLBP: a randomized control trial.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- The Effect of M-Health-Based Core Stability Exercise Combined with Self-Compassion Training for Patients with Nonspecific Chronic Low Back Pain: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Study.Pain and therapy · 2022Article
- Article
- "Today I Can Look in the Mirror and Like Myself": Effects of a Trauma-Informed Mindful Recovery Program on Self-Compassion.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Low Back Pain Assessment Based on Alpha Oscillation Changes in Spontaneous Electroencephalogram (EEG).Neural plasticity · 2021Article
- Interoception-Based Yoga for Chronic Pain: A Pilot Feasibility Study.Global advances in integrative medicine and healthArticle
- Concurrent TMS-EEG and EEG reveal neuroplastic and oscillatory changes associated with self-compassion and negative emotions.International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHPArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveSelf-compassion meditation, which involves compassion toward the self in moments of suffering, shows promise for improving pain-related functioning, but its underlying mechanisms are unknown. This longitudinal, exploratory pilot study investigated the effects of a brief (eight contact hours, two weeks of home practice) self-compassion training on pain-related brain processing in chronic low back pain (cLBP).
methodsWe evaluated functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) response to evoked pressure pain and its anticipation during a self-compassionate state and compared altered brain responses following training with changes on self-reported measures of self-compassion (Self-Compassion Scale [SCS]), interoceptive awareness (Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness [MAIA]), and clinical pain intensity.
resultsIn a sample of participants with cLBP (N = 20 total, N = 14 with complete longitudinal data) who underwent self-compassion training, we observed reduced clinical pain intensity and disability (P < 0.01) and increased trait self-compassion and interoceptive awareness (all P < 0.05) following training. Evoked pressure pain response in the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) was reduced following training, and decreases were associated with reduced clinical pain intensity. Further, increased fMRI responses to pain anticipation were observed in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and ventral posterior cingulate cortex (vPCC), and these increases were associated with mean post-training changes in SCS scores and scores from the body listening subscale of the MAIA. DISCUSSION: These findings, though exploratory and lacking comparison with a control condition, suggest that self-compassion training supports regulation of pain through the involvement of self-referential (vPCC), salience-processing (TPJ), and emotion regulatory (dlPFC) brain areas. The results also suggest that self-compassion could be an important target in the psychotherapeutic treatment of cLBP, although further studies using controlled experimental designs are needed to determine the specificity of these effects.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.