Differential effects on pain intensity and unpleasantness of two meditation practices.

Response to reviewers’ comments on manuscript Differential effects on pain intensity and unpleasantness of two meditation practices by Perlman, Salomons, Davidson, and Lutz. Below, the reviewers’ comments are indicated in italic type with our response in roman

Enhancement of Meditation Analgesia by Opioid Antagonist in Experienced Meditators.

OBJECTIVE Studies have consistently shown that long-term meditation practice is associated with reduced pain, but the neural mechanisms by which long-term meditation practice reduces pain remain unclear. This study tested endogenous opioid involvement in meditation analgesia associated with long-term meditation practice. METHODS Electrical pain was induced with randomized, double-blind, cross...

Meditation experience predicts less negative appraisal of pain: electrophysiological evidence for the involvement of anticipatory neural responses.

The aim of mindfulness meditation is to develop present-focused, non-judgmental, attention. Therefore, experience in meditation should be associated with less anticipation and negative appraisal of pain. In this study we compared a group of individuals with meditation experience to a control group to test whether any differences in the affective appraisal of pain could be explained by lower ant...

Brain Mechanisms Supporting Modulation of Pain by Mindfulness Meditation

The subjective experience of one’s environment is constructed by interactions among sensory, cognitive, and affective processes. For centuries, meditation has been thought to influence such processes by enabling a non-evaluative representation of sensory events. To better understand how meditation influences the sensory experience, we employed arterial spin labeling (ASL) functional magnetic re...

Brain mechanisms supporting the modulation of pain by mindfulness meditation.

The subjective experience of one's environment is constructed by interactions among sensory, cognitive, and affective processes. For centuries, meditation has been thought to influence such processes by enabling a nonevaluative representation of sensory events. To better understand how meditation influences the sensory experience, we used arterial spin labeling functional magnetic resonance ima...