Stanford Center for Back Pain

Summary

The purpose of the Stanford Center for Back Pain is to investigate and characterize the mechanisms of four treatments for chronic low back pain. These interventions (research treatment) include real-time fMRI neurofeedback, mindfulness based stress reduction, cognitive behavioral therapy, and acupuncture treatment. The investigators plan to characterize both mechanisms of treatment effects and efficacy.

Conditions

• Chronic Low Back Pain

Interventions

OTHER

Real-Time fMRI

Real-Time fMRI: AR, CR, Sham, and Free Strategy groups will be compared to determine the following: (1) whether a cognitive strategy improves rtfMRI neurofeedback to modulate brain activity and pain; (2) which strategy is most effective at individual and group levels at modulating brain activity and pain; and (3) whether the investigators can predict individual ability to modulate brain activity or pain using a particular strategy and applying mixed effects modeling of treatment efficacy using baseline measurements.

BEHAVIORAL

CBT or MBSR

CBT/MBSR: The study will investigate whether CBT versus MBSR differentially enhance behavioral and neural indices of the ability to implement cognitive regulation (CR) and attention regulation (AR) during evoked pain in the lower back in participants with chronic low back pain. An additional wait list control (WL) group will be used to determine the effects of time on pain symptom severity and well-being.

DEVICE

Acupuncture

Acupuncture: The investigators will compare the efficacy and mechanisms of verum and sham electroacupuncture.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Stanford University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Sean Mackey, MD, PhD · Stanford University

• James Gross, PhD · Stanford University

• Rachel Manber, PhD · Stanford University

• Sean Mackey, MD, PhD · Stanford University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

21 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2015-03-31

Primary Completion

2026-12-31

Completion

2026-12-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations