Psychotherapy With Somatosensory Stimulation for Endometriosis-Associated Pain: The Role of the Anterior Hippocampus

Florian Beissner, Florian Beißner, Preibisch C, Christine Preibisch, Annemarie Schweizer-Arau, Schweizer-Arau A, Popovici RM, Roxana M Popovici, Roxana Popovici, Karin Meissner, Karin Meißner
Biological psychiatry · 2017 · vol. 84(10) , pp. 734–742 · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2017.01.006 · PMID:28258747 · W2574754760
RCT OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 21 in-corpus citations
View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-12 ⓘ

This study investigated how psychotherapy combined with somatosensory stimulation affects endometriosis-associated pain by examining the role of the anterior hippocampus.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Endometriosis is a gynecological disorder affecting 6%-10% of all women in their reproductive age. There is an emerging view in the literature that psychological trauma plays a central role in the pathogenesis of pelvic pain, one of the core symptoms of endometriosis. Here we report central nervous system mechanisms of a novel combination of psychotherapy and somatosensory stimulation that has recently shown remarkable effects in reducing pain, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in these patients. METHODS: We conducted a randomized controlled trial; 67 patients with severe endometriosis-associated pain (maximum pain: 7.6 ± 2.0, average pain: 4.5 ± 2.0 on a 10-point numeric rating scale) were included in the study and randomly allocated to intervention (35 patients) or waitlist control (32 patients) groups. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to assess brain connectivity of these patients at baseline, after 3 months of therapy, and after 6 months. The analysis focused on the hippocampus. RESULTS: We identified a cortical network comprising the right anterolateral hippocampus-a region modulating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis-and somatosensory, viscerosensory, and interoceptive brain regions. Regression analysis showed that reduction in connectivity predicted therapy-induced improvement in patients׳ anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: We have identified a putative neurobiological mechanism underlying the potent combination of psychotherapy and somatic stimulation in treating symptoms of endometriosis.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosischronic_pelvic_pain

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Hippocampus Pain Management Pelvic Pain Psychotherapy Psychotherapy Adult Adult Analysis of Variance Analysis of Variance Endometriosis Endometriosis Female Female Hippocampus Hippocampus Humans Humans Magnetic Resonance Imaging Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Citation neighborhood (2-hop)

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. Outer rings show 2-hop neighbours — papers reached through the immediate citers/citees. [ collapse to 1-hop ]

References (65)

Cited by (22)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-10-16T06:09:50.462052+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-10-08T21:19:26.535059+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK