Neural and Physiological Mechanisms Supporting Mindfulness-Based Analgesia as Compared to Placebo

Description

This webinar is being produced through a collaboration of the IASP's Pain and Placebo Special Interest Group and the University of Maryland, Baltimore, USA - in particular - the University of Maryland School of Nursing's Placebo Beyond Opinions Center. Both groups are aligned on advancing unbiased knowledge of placebo effects by promoting interdisciplinary investigation of the placebo phenomenon and nurturing placebo research.

THIS WEBINAR IS UNIQUE IN THAT IT IS BEING HOSTED (BOTH IN-PERSON AND VIRTUALLY) BY THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. AS SUCH, A LINK TO THE WEBINAR WILL NOT BE DISTRIBUTED UPON REGISTRATION - RATHER - A LINK TO THE WEBINAR WILL BE DISTRIBUTED TO REGISTRANTS VIA EMAIL BOTH 24 HOURS AND 1 HOUR PRIOR TO THE WEBINAR. FOR ANY QUESTIONS, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO EMAIL GREGORY CARBONETTI AT GREGORY.CARBONETTI@IASP-PAIN.ORG

The IASP defines pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage" to better articulate the biopsychosocial dimensions of this phenomenon. While our understanding of pain has greatly evolved over the past decades, there are still fundamental questions that need to be addressed, including its psychological components.

Various analyses indicate mindfulness-based meditation to be efficacious for chronic and acute pain management, however, most available studies lack appropriate controls. As such, placebo-related processes could account for these positive mindfulness effects. Therefore, a mechanistic understanding of mindfulness processes is required to disentangle the analgesic effects of mindfulness from placebo-related processes. Join us as we take a deep-dive into the neural and physiological mechanisms supporting mindfulness-based analgesia that distinguish this treatment from placebo-related processes.

Participants include:
-- Fadel Zeidan, PhD, University of California, San Diego, USA
-- Luana Colloca, MD, PhD, University of Maryland School of Nursing, USA (host)

Contributors

Fadel Zeidan, PhD

Fadel is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Director of the Pain Health and Mindfulness Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), USA. Fadel is also the Inaugural Endowed Professor of empathy and compassion for the UCSD T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion. Additionally, Fadel is a cofounder and Neuroscience Director for the UCSD Center for Psychedelic Research. His current research is focused on determining the psychological, physiological, and neural mechanisms that mediate the relationship between self-regulatory practices and health. Specifically, his work examines the mechanisms of action supporting mindfulness meditation, psychedelics, and cannabis on pain. To date, he and his team have demonstrated that mindfulness meditation is mechanistically distinct from and more effective than placebo, distraction, and relaxation.
Luana Colloca, MD, PhD

Luana is a MPower Distinguished professor at University of Maryland, School of Nursing, Baltimore, Director of the TL1 program, Chair of the Pain and Placebo Special Interest Group for the International Association for Study of Pain (IASP) Society and the Treasurer for the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies of Placebo (SIPS). Colloca holds an MD, a PhD in Neuroscience and a master in Bioethics. She completed a post-doc training at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden and a senior research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. Prof. Colloca received several prestigious awards such as the IASP Wall Patrick Award for basic research on pain mechanisms. Colloca leads an NIH-funded research portfolio on endogenous pain modulation including placebo/nocebo effects and other nonpharmacological interventions such as virtual reality. Colloca and her teamhave been published in top-ranked journals including JAMA, NEJM, Biological Psychiatry, Pain, and Lancet Neurology among others.