Interested? Contact Lisa May at 541.357.9410 (call or text) or email lmay@uoregon.edu.
How and why does meditation help with physical pain? We’re working to answer this question with the Meditation Neuroscience Research Study. Our goal is to help people who deal with chronic pain, and we need people who regularly meditate as participants.
Study Overview
In this study, we observe how healthy meditators’ brains respond to pain in a laboratory setting. We use special equipment that stimulates nerves to cause momentary pain that is safe, non-harming, and goes away immediately. Some people might also take a drug that helps visualize brain activity. Participants are paid $40 – $160.
Who can participate?
We need people who have:
been meditating regularly for about two years or more,
no history of significant neurological disorder,
no history of cardiac disorder,
no history of chronic pain,
and no history of alcohol or drug abuse.
You also can’t be:
Smoking more than five cigarettes a day,
pregnant or breastfeeding,
taking any medication that affects normal cognitive function or pain perception,
or taking any narcotics.
What would I do?
If you participated, you’d spend about two hours in our lab at the University of Oregon. You’d fill out questionnaires on a computer and have your pain experience measured before and after you meditated. We use special equipment that stimulates nerves to cause momentary pain that is safe, non-harming, and goes away immediately. You’d also do two other tasks that we use for comparison (journaling and counting tasks). You’d be paid $40 cash at the end of this session.
Afterwards, a researcher might ask you if you want to do two more sessions. If you said yes, you’d go to a doctor’s office and be given a drug that helps visualize brain activity. It’s a very safe drug and you likely wouldn’t even be able to tell that it was in your system. These sessions take about two hours and we’d pay you $60 for each.
If you do decide to participate, your involvement will help us understand the underlying mechanisms of pain, and will contribute to knowledge that may help patients experiencing chronic pain live happier and fuller lives.
How is this study paid for?
This study is supported by grants from the Greater Good Science Center and the Mind and Life Institute. These organizations fund research that is focused on understanding how mental processes such as gratitude and meditation contribute to health and well-being.
Who are the researchers?
Lisa May is the lead researcher on this project. She’s a doctoral candidate in the Department of Biology and the Institute of Neuroscience. Lisa’s research focuses on how mental processes affect the way we feel pain. She first got interested in the psychology of pain perception while she was working for Hospice of Spokane, a non-profit hospice care organization in Spokane, Washington. Pain management is a big focus of hospice care, and Lisa observed many examples where pain was affected by attitudes, beliefs, social connection, and/or compassionate care. This sparked her curiosity to understand the underlying brain processes. Lisa is interested in meditation both scientifically and personally. She finds that her personal practice inspires her scientific inquiry, and vice versa.
Elliot Berkman is the faculty advisor for this project. He is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon and the leader of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Lab.
Interested? Contact Lisa May at 541.357.9410 (call or text) or email lmay@uoregon.edu.