The Analogic Meditation (AM) in Parkinson's Disease: An Integrated Neuroscientific Approach for Chronic Pain and Non-Motor Symptoms

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a systemic neurodegenerative disease that involves much more than just dopaminergic degeneration of the substantia nigra. Non-motor symptoms — including anxiety, depression, chronic pain, sleep disturbances, and fatigue — often represent the heaviest burden for patients and their caregivers, and remain undertreated by conventional pharmacological therapies. Analogic Meditation, a technique codified by Dr. Alessandro Mahony, the author of this article, already taught at the university level to physicians and healthcare professionals, represents a targeted psychological and neuroscientific intervention that seeks to address the mechanisms underlying emotional dysregulation, chronic pain, and neuroinflammation in PD. This article examines the pathophysiological bases of PD, the psychoneuroscientific rationale of Analogic Meditation, the existing clinical evidence on meditation in PD, and practical applications for integrating this technique into existing therapeutic pathways, also proposing an integrated protocol that combines Analogic Meditation with conventional therapies, offering a new perspective for symptom management.