A Brief Mindfulness Meditation Training Increases Pain Threshold and Accelerates Modulation of Response to Tonic Pain in an Experimental Study.

Objective: Research shows that mindfulness meditation (MM) affects pain perception; however, studies have yet to measure patterns of change over time. We examined effects of MM on perception of experimental heat pain using multiple psychophysical indices, including pattern of change in response to tonic painful stimuli. We also tested the potential moderating role of baseline mindfulness.

"Off with the old": mindfulness practice improves backward inhibition.

Mindfulness practice has been linked to reduced depressive rumination and described as involving inhibition of information that has been relevant in the past and is no longer relevant in the present moment. Backward inhibition (BI) is considered to be one of the purest measures of task set inhibition, and impaired BI has been linked to depressive rumination. BI was contrasted with Competitor Rule Suppression (CRS), which is another phenomenon observed in task switching, yet one which involves episodic memory tagging of information that is currently conflicting rather than active inhibition.

Do mindfulness-based interventions reduce pain intensity? A critical review of the literature.

Background: Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) emphasizing a nonjudgmental attitude toward present moment experience are widely used for chronic pain patients. Although changing or controlling pain is not an explicit aim of MBIs, recent experimental studies suggest that mindfulness practice may lead to changes in pain tolerance and pain intensity ratings.

Objective: The objective of this review is to investigate the specific effect of MBIs on pain intensity.

"Mind the trap": mindfulness practice reduces cognitive rigidity.

Two experiments examined the relation between mindfulness practice and cognitive rigidity by using a variation of the Einstellung water jar task. Participants were required to use three hypothetical jars to obtain a specific amount of water. Initial problems were solvable by the same complex formula, but in later problems ("critical" or "trap" problems) solving was possible by an additional much simpler formula.

Bulbospinal neurons of the rat rostromedial medulla are highly collateralized.

The rostromedial medulla participates in a large variety of sensory, motor, and autonomic functions. We asked whether individual bulbospinal neurons in this region have localized, target-specific terminal arbors or whether they collateralize broadly in the spinal cord. Collateralization was quantified along three spinal axes, rostrocaudal, left-right, and dorsoventral, by using double retrograde labeling.