Yordanova Juliana, Nicolardi Valentina, Malinowski Peter, Simione Luca, Aglioti Salvatore M, Raffone Antonino, Kolev Vasil
Institute of Neurobiology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Acad. G. Bonchev Str., Bl. 23, 1113, Sofia, Bulgaria.
Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2025 Mar 27;15(1):10604. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-94223-7.
The experience of pain is a combined product of bottom-up and top-down influences mediated by attentional and emotional factors. Meditation states and traits are characterized by enhanced attention/emotion regulation and expanded self-awareness that can be expected to modify pain processing. The main objective of the present study was to explore the effects of long-term meditation on neural mechanisms of pain processing. EEG pain-related oscillations (PROs) were analysed in highly experienced practitioners and novices during a non-meditative resting state with respect to (a) local frequency-specific and temporal synchronizing characteristics to reflect mainly bottom-up mechanisms, (b) spatial synchronizing patterns to reflect the neural communication of noxious information, (c) pre-stimulus oscillations to reflect top-down mechanisms during pain expectancy, and (d) the P3b component of the pain-related potential to compare the emotional/cognitive reappraisal of pain events by expert and novice meditators. Main results demonstrated that in experienced (long-term) meditators as compared to non-experienced (short-term) meditators (1) the temporal and spatial synchronizations of multispectral (from theta-alpha to gamma) PROs were substantially suppressed at primary and secondary somatosensory regions contra-lateral to pain stimulation within 200 ms after noxious stimulus; (2) pre-stimulus alpha activity was significantly increased at the same regions, which predicted the suppressed synchronization of PROs in long-term meditators; (3) the decrease of the P3b component was non-significant. These novel observations provide evidence that even when subjected to pain outside of meditation, experienced meditators exhibit a pro-active top-down inhibition of somatosensory areas resulting in suppressed processing and communication of sensory information at early stages of painful input. The emotional/cognitive appraisal of pain is reduced but remains preserved revealing a capacity of experienced meditators to dissociate pro-active and reactive top-down processes during pain control.
疼痛体验是由注意力和情绪因素介导的自下而上和自上而下影响的综合产物。冥想状态和特质的特点是注意力/情绪调节增强以及自我意识扩展，这有望改变疼痛处理过程。本研究的主要目的是探讨长期冥想对疼痛处理神经机制的影响。在非冥想静息状态下，对经验丰富的冥想者和新手进行脑电图疼痛相关振荡（PROs）分析，涉及以下方面：（a）局部频率特异性和时间同步特征，主要反映自下而上的机制；（b）空间同步模式，以反映有害信息的神经通信；（c）刺激前振荡，以反映疼痛预期期间的自上而下机制；（d）疼痛相关电位的P3b成分，以比较专家和新手冥想者对疼痛事件的情绪/认知重新评估。主要结果表明，与无经验（短期）冥想者相比，有经验（长期）的冥想者：（1）在有害刺激后200毫秒内，疼痛刺激对侧的初级和次级体感区域，多光谱（从θ波到α波再到γ波）PROs的时间和空间同步显著受到抑制；（2）相同区域的刺激前α活动显著增加，这预测了长期冥想者中PROs同步的抑制；（3）P3b成分的降低不显著。这些新发现提供了证据，表明即使在冥想之外遭受疼痛时，有经验的冥想者也会对体感区域表现出主动的自上而下抑制，导致在疼痛输入的早期阶段感觉信息的处理和通信受到抑制。对疼痛的情绪/认知评估有所降低但仍保留，这揭示了有经验的冥想者在疼痛控制期间分离主动和反应性自上而下过程的能力。
