Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, a Mindfulness-Based Approach for Treatment of Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain

Over 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain (CP), which causes more disability than any other medical condition in the U.S. at a cost of $560-$635 billion per year. Opioid analgesics are frequently used to treat CP. However, long term use of opioids can cause brain changes such as opioid-induced hyperalgesia that, over time, increase pain sensation. Also, opioids fail to treat complex psychological factors that worsen pain-related disability, including beliefs and emotional responses to pain. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be efficacious for CP. However, CBT does not focus on important factors needed for long-term functional improvement, including attainment of personal goals and the psychological flexibility to choose responses to pain.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a mindfulness-based therapy that focuses on enabling individuals to accept what is out of their control, and to commit to valued actions that enrich their lives. ACT was developed in 1986 by Stephen C. Hayes who began to examine how language and thought influence internal experiences. By emphasizing acceptance instead of avoidance, ACT differs from many other forms of cognitive behavioral therapy. Although not originally designed for CP, ACT has been shown to be efficacious in terms of clinical outcomes, adherence to treatment, and retention, earning the status of a "well-established" treatment for CP from the American Psychological Association. ACT aims to increase psychological flexibility, and has been associated with improved health outcomes in many randomized controlled clinical trials, including three systematic reviews specific to CP. Psychological flexibility is defined as an individual's ability to "recognize and adapt to various situational demands; shift mindsets or behavioral repertoires when these strategies compromise personal or social functioning; maintain balance among important life domains; and be aware, open, and committed to behaviors that are congruent with deeply held values." ACT is a "third wave" behavioral treatment that has been shown to be efficacious for treating CP, as well as co-morbid conditions and factors (e.g., goal selection) related to long-term functional improvement. Additionally, patients who participate in ACT report greater long-term satisfaction compared to CBT. ACT is transdiagnostic and associated with improvements in physical functioning and pain-related disability, as well as decreases in emotional distress regardless of perceived pain intensity.

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) allows for data to be collected while individuals with CP rest in the MRI scanner for a short period of time (<10 minutes). Thus, data provides information about the natural state of brain function in CP without having to apply any external sensory or cognitive stimulation. Analysis methods of rsfMRI have focused on multiple regions in the brain, targeting inherent and altered measures of connectivity between brain regions and within brain networks. Further, alterations in brain structure and function have been demonstrated in multiple CP syndromes. Prior imaging research has suggested that CP results in abnormal hyper-connectivity of brain networks associated with self-reflection (default mode, DMN), emotion (salience, SN), and cognitive control (frontal parietal, FPN) networks. While ACT has been successful in helping those with CP create a more functional and personally meaningful life, a critical gap in the understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying ACT remains.

Only two prior investigations have used fMRI to assess neural mechanisms of ACT-based interventions for CP. The first investigated task fMRI activation using pressure evoked pain. Participants with fibromyalgia showed increased activation in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) post-ACT after 12 weeks of ACT. Additionally, results showed pain-evoked changes in connectivity between the vlPFC and thalamus after ACT. Researchers in the second investigation conducted an 8-week ACT intervention vs. health education control (HEC) for participants with comorbid CP and opioid addiction. Focusing on DMN and pain regions in the brain, participants receiving ACT exhibited decreased activation during evoked pain in the middle frontal gyrus (MFG), inferior parietal lobule (IPL), insula, anterior cingulate cortex (aCC), posterior cingulate cortex (pCC), and superior temporal gyrus (STG) compared with HEC participants.

In the present study, ACT was delivered to nine women with CP. fMRI was used to identify changes in brain networks underlying ACT-related behavioral outcomes in CP. Based on prior work examining ACT in CP, the investigators hypothesize that: (1) ACT will reduce connectivity strength within and between the DMN, SN, and FPN, and that (2) changes in connectivity strength will correlate with changes in behavioral outcomes from pre- to post-ACT.