ArticlePilot and feasibility studies2022
A feasibility study on yoga's mechanism of action for chronic low back pain: psychological and neurophysiological changes, including global gene expression and DNA methylation, following a yoga intervention for chronic low back pain.
Article in Pilot and feasibility studies, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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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
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- Changes in DNA Methylation Associated With Psychobehavioral Interventions: A Scoping Literature Review.Biological research for nursing · 2025Article
- What can the psychoneuroimmunology of yoga teach us about depression's psychopathology?Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2024Article
- Protocol for Biospecimen Collection and Analysis Within the BACPAC Research Program.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2023Article
- Yoga For Musculoskeletal Disorders: A Review of Prospective Clinical Studies.Global advances in integrative medicine and healthArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
introductionYoga has been shown to reduce pain and improve function in populations with chronic low back pain (cLBP), yet the underlying molecular mechanisms remain elusive. This study examined the feasibility and acceptability of a yoga research protocol, including recruitment, retention, and data collection, and investigated the preliminary effects of yoga on psychological and neurophysiological functions, including gene expression and DNA methylation profiles, in participants with cLBP.
methodsA one-arm trial was conducted with 11 participants with cLBP who enrolled in a 12-week yoga intervention. Data on subjective pain characteristics, quantitative sensory testing, and blood for analysis of differentially expressed genes and CpG methylation was collected prior to the start of the intervention and at study completion.
resultsBased on pre-determined feasibility and acceptability criteria, the yoga intervention was found to be feasible and highly acceptable to participants. There was a reduction in pain severity, interference, and mechanical pain sensitivity post-yoga and an increase in emotion regulation and self-efficacy. No adverse reactions were reported. Differential expression analysis demonstrated that the yoga intervention induced increased expression of antisense genes, some of which serve as antisense to known pain genes. In addition, there were 33 differentially hypomethylated positions after yoga (log2 fold change ≥ 1), with enrichment of genes involved in NIK/NF-kB signaling, a major pathway that modulates immune function and inflammation. DISCUSSION/
conclusionsThe study supports the feasibility and acceptability of the proposed protocol to test a specific mechanism of action for yoga in individuals with cLBP. These results also support the notion that yoga may operate through our identified psychological and neurophysiologic pathways to influence reduced pain severity and interference.
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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.