Research Publications

This narrative review summarizes and integrates the available literature on PA and pain to: 1) Provide a brief overview of PA and summarize the key findings that have emerged in the study of PA and chronic pain; 2) Provide a theoretical foundation from which to understand how PA operates in the context of chronic pain; and 3) Highlight how the prevailing psychosocial treatments for chronic pain address PA . . .

Opioid pharmacotherapy is now the leading treatment for chronic pain, a problem that affects nearly one third of the U.S. population. Given the dramatic rise in prescription opioid misuse and opioid-related mortality, novel behavioral interventions are needed. The purpose of this study was to conduct an early-stage randomized controlled trial of Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), a multimodal intervention designed to simultaneously target mechanisms underpinning chronic pain and opioid misuse.

Prominent neuroscience models suggest that addictive behavior occurs when environmental stressors and drug-relevant cues activate a cycle of cognitive, affective, and psychophysiological mechanisms, including dysregulated interactions between bottom-up and top-down neural processes, that compel the user to seek out and use drugs.