University of Michigan Mechanistic Research Center -The Back Pain Consortium Research Program

This study is being completed to better understand who benefits from different chronic pain treatments and how these treatments work.

This study will include a four week run-in period for all cLBP participants. After completing the PainGuide (online or smart phone accessible website) run-in period, participants will be assessed using either the light or light plus deep phenotyping assessment battery and those who minimal or modest improvement in their pain (based on PGIC) will be randomized to one of four 8-week treatments (mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), physical therapy (PT) and exercise, acupressure self-management, or duloxetine).

In addition, participants will complete study visits including physical exams, complete surveys, provide samples (blood,saliva, etc.), wear an electronic wrist device at certain times, and have Magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs) during the study.

Following one of the 4 treatments (8 weeks) if participants have a certain level of pain (that meets eligibility for more treatment) they will be then randomized to complete one of the 3 treatments that was not already assigned to them.

The study hypothesizes the following:

that this interventional response phenotyping can identify individuals with different underlying mechanisms for their pain who thus respond differentially to evidence-based interventions for chronic lower back pain (cLBP).