Selective Attentional Bias Towards Pain-Related Threat in Fibromyalgia: Preliminary Evidence for Effects of Mindfulness Meditation Training

The current study investigated the effects of an 8-week mindfulness-based meditation training (MMT) intervention on attentional bias, engagement and disengagement of pain-related threat in fibromyalgia patients as compared to an age-matched control group. A well validated dot-probe task was used to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognitive therapy and research 2011-12, Vol.35 (6), p.581-594
Main Authors: Vago, David R., Nakamura, Yoshio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anxiety
Attention
Bias
Biological and medical sciences
Clinical Psychology
Cognitive ability
Cognitive Psychology
Emotional regulation
Emotions
Fibromyalgia
Medical imaging
Medical sciences
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Meditation
Mindfulness
MMT
Neuroimaging
Original Article
Pain
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Quality of Life Research
Relaxation. Biofeedback. Hypnosis. Selfregulation. Meditation
Threats
Treatments
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Summary:The current study investigated the effects of an 8-week mindfulness-based meditation training (MMT) intervention on attentional bias, engagement and disengagement of pain-related threat in fibromyalgia patients as compared to an age-matched control group. A well validated dot-probe task was used to explore early versus later stages of attentional processing through the use of two stimulus exposure durations (100, 500 ms) of pain-related threat words. The enduring effects of MMT were assessed 6-months after completion of MMT. Preliminary results suggest that MMT reduces avoidance of pain-related threat at early levels of processing, and facilitates disengagement from threat at later stages of processing. Furthermore, it appears that effects of MMT on early attentional threat processing do not remain stable after long-term follow-up.
ISSN:0147-5916
1573-2819
DOI:10.1007/s10608-011-9391-x