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Imagination-based loving-kindness meditation and focused attention meditation temporarily enhance responses to pain in different ways: an ERP study

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Abstract

Imagination-based loving-kindness meditation (ibLKM), a new method that combines blessing and imagination developed from the scriptures of Zhiyi, has recently been proposed. The current study aims to examine one of the possible effects of this method through an empirical research approach: the enhancement of responses to pain. In the present study, 59 participants in three groups practiced ibLKM, focused attention meditation (FAM), and watched an unrelated video, respectively. Electroencephalography (EEG) data were recorded from participants who were presented with painful and non-painful pictures before and after meditation practices. Participants were asked to judge whether the stimulus was a painful picture or a non-painful picture. Event-related potential (ERP) analyses revealed that the LPP amplitudes over the central-parietal area elicited by the painful pictures were significantly more positive than those before the meditation practices in the ibLKM and FAM groups. The P3 amplitudes over the central-parietal area were significantly more positive in the posttest than in the pretest when viewing painful pictures in the FAM group. In contrast, in the ibLKM, the P3 amplitudes were not significantly different in the pretest and posttest when viewing painful pictures. These results suggested that ibLKM and FAM temporarily enhance responses to pain in different ways.

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The data supporting the findings of this study are available in the Supplemental Information.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Jing Meng, Dr. Hong Chen and Dr. Xiting Huang for providing the experimental materials for this study.

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the National Social Science Foundation of China Major Program (19ZDA043).

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Junyi Hao and Shaozhen Feng. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Junyi Hao and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chang Liu.

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Ethical approval

All procedures performed in the study were reviewed and approved by the Nanjing Normal University Ethics Board (No. NNU202106023).

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

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Hao, J., Liu, C., Feng, S. et al. Imagination-based loving-kindness meditation and focused attention meditation temporarily enhance responses to pain in different ways: an ERP study. Curr Psychol 43, 5826–5838 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04780-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04780-1

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