Research Publications

Among opioid-treated chronic pain patients, deficient response inhibition in the context of emotional distress may contribute to maladaptive pain coping and prescription opioid misuse. Study tested the hypothesis that a mindfulness-based intervention, Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), can reduce the impact of clinically relevant, negative affective interference on response inhibition function in an opioid-treated chronic pain sample.

This paper describes ecological momentary assessment results from a Stage 1 RCT of MORE as an adjunct to methadone maintenance for opioid use disorder.

Mindfulness-based interventions target novel pain relief mechanisms not captured by legacy pain scales, including 1) cultivating awareness of pleasant and neutral sensations proximal to unpleasant sensations and 2) interoceptive mapping of sensation location and spatial distribution.

Pain is a biopsychosocial experience that goes well beyond mere nociception. In this regard, identification of the physical pathology at the site of injury is necessary but not sufficient to explicate the complex process by which somatosensory information is transformed into the physiologic, cognitive, affective, and behavioral response labeled as pain.

Both acute and chronic pain can disrupt reward processing. Moreover, prolonged prescription opioid use and depressed mood are common in chronic pain samples. Despite the prevalence of these risk factors for anhedonia, little is known about anhedonia in chronic pain populations. We conducted a large-scale, systematic study of anhedonia in chronic pain, focusing on its relationship with opioid use/misuse, pain severity, and depression.