Trial reportBiological psychiatry2025
Mindfulness Meditation and Placebo Modulate Distinct Multivariate Neural Signatures to Reduce Pain.
Trial report in Biological psychiatry, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Efficacy of psychological treatment for tension-type headache: a systematic review and meta-analysis.The journal of headache and pain · 2025Pooled it
- Mindfulness Level Influences the Frequency, Amplitude and Duration of Awake Bruxism Episodes During Standardised Mental Capacity Tasks.Journal of oral rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Article
- Nature exposure reduces self-reported pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Nature. Mental health · 2026Article
- Reconfiguring Pain Interpretation Within a Social Model of Health Using a Simplified Version of Wilber's All Quadrant All Levels Framework: An Integral Vision.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- ENIGMA-Meditation: Worldwide Consortium for Neuroscientific Investigations of Meditation Practices.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2025Review
- Nature exposure induces analgesic effects by acting on nociception-related neural processing.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Why mindfulness matters in musculoskeletal therapies: a narrative review.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundRather than a passive reflection of nociception, pain is shaped by the interplay between one's experiences, current cognitive-affective states, and expectations. The placebo response, a paradoxical yet reliable phenomenon, is postulated to reduce pain by engaging mechanisms shared with active therapies. It has been assumed that mindfulness meditation, practiced by sustaining nonjudgmental awareness of arising sensory events, merely reflects mechanisms evoked by placebo. Recently, brain-based multivariate pattern analysis has been validated to successfully disentangle nociceptive-specific, negative affective, and placebo-based dimensions of the subjective pain experience.
methodsTo determine whether mindfulness meditation engages distinct brain mechanisms from placebo and sham mindfulness to reduce pain, multivariate pattern analysis pain signatures were applied across 2 randomized clinical trials that employed overlapping psychophysical pain testing procedures (49 °C noxious heat; visual analog pain scales) and distinct functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques (blood oxygen level-dependent; perfusion based). After baseline pain testing, 115 healthy participants were randomized into a 4-session mindfulness meditation (n = 37), placebo-cream conditioning (n = 19), sham mindfulness meditation (n = 20), or book-listening control (n = 39) intervention. After each intervention, noxious heat was administered during functional magnetic resonance imaging and each manipulation.
resultsA double dissociation in the multivariate pattern analysis signatures supporting pain regulation was revealed by mindfulness meditation compared with placebo cream. Mindfulness meditation produced significantly greater reductions in pain intensity and pain unpleasantness ratings and nociceptive-specific and negative affective pain signatures than placebo cream, sham mindfulness meditation, and control interventions. The placebo-cream group significantly lowered the placebo-based signature.
conclusionsMindfulness meditation and placebo engaged distinct and granular neural pain signatures to reduce pain.
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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.