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Mindful attention to breath regulates emotions via increased amygdala-prefrontal cortex connectivity
Abstract
Mindfulness practice is beneficial for emotion regulation; however, the neural mechanisms underlying this effect are poorly understood. The current study focuses on effects of attention-to-breath (ATB) as a basic mindfulness practice on aversive emotions at behavioral and brain levels. A key finding across different emotion regulation-strategies is the modulation of amygdala and prefrontal activity. It is unclear how ATB relevant brain areas in the prefrontal cortex integrate with amygdala activation during emotional stimulation. We proposed that, during emotional stimulation, ATB down-regulates activation in the amygdala and increases its integration with prefrontal regions. To address this hypothesis, 26 healthy controls were trained in mindfulness-based attention-to-breath meditation for two weeks and then stimulated with aversive pictures during both attention-to-breath and passive viewing while undergoing fMRI. Data were controlled for breathing frequency. Results indicate that (1) ATB was effective in regulating aversive emotions. (2) Left dorso-medial prefrontal cortex was associated with ATB in general. (3) A fronto-parietal network was additionally recruited during emotional stimulation. (4) ATB down regulated amygdala activation and increased amygdala-prefrontal integration, with such increased integration being associated with mindfulness ability. Results suggest amygdala-dorsal prefrontal cortex integration as a potential neural pathway of emotion regulation by mindfulness practice.
... Da mesma forma, níveis elevados dos hormônios do estresse podem afetar negativamente o eixo neuroendócrino reprodutivo e, portanto, os níveis de circulação dos hormônios gonadais [1]. Evidências demonstram efeitos das Intervenções Baseadas em Mindfulness (IBM) nos sistemas de neurotransmissores [3,4], de modo que há necessidade de aprofundamento sobre sua eficácia no tratamento de transtornos mentais da mulher. ...
... Por fim, há evidências crescentes da compreensão dos mecanismos neurais associados às mudanças geradas pelas IBM [4], com descrição de ativação cerebral e interconectividade de diversas regiões, com impacto na função do córtex medial e diminuição da ativação da rede de modo padrão associada, bem como aumento de atividade na ínsula e menor ativação da amígdala [4,9,11]. ...
... Por fim, há evidências crescentes da compreensão dos mecanismos neurais associados às mudanças geradas pelas IBM [4], com descrição de ativação cerebral e interconectividade de diversas regiões, com impacto na função do córtex medial e diminuição da ativação da rede de modo padrão associada, bem como aumento de atividade na ínsula e menor ativação da amígdala [4,9,11]. ...
Introdução: A saúde mental da mulher é influenciada por particularidades e variações hormonais que podem predispor a diversos transtornos mentais. Com base na evidência das práticas de meditação de atenção plena (mindfulness) em populações gerais, estas intervenções têm o potencial de modular a psicopatologia feminina, promovendo melhoria na saúde mental. Métodos: Uma revisão narrativa foi realizada com a finalidade de avaliar a relação entre a prática de atenção plena e a saúde mental da mulher. Foram consultadas as bases de dados Pubmed, MEDLINE, Embase e Cochrane, selecionando os artigos em inglês publicados nos últimos dez anos. Resultados e Discussão: Os resultados dos estudos incluídos nesta revisão apontam para a eficácia da atenção plena nos processos de manejo de estresse e na promoção da regulação emocional em mulheres. As práticas de meditação de atenção plena foram consistentemente associadas a uma atenuação nos sintomas de condições específicas à saúde mental da mulher, tais como: transtorno disfórico pré-menstrual; depressão, estresse e ansiedade na gestação e pós-parto; estresse na perimenopausa; disfunções sexuais e transtorno alimentar, especialmente episódios de compulsão alimentar e comer emocional. Evidenciam-se ainda algumas fragilidades metodológicas das pesquisas sobre meditação atenção plena em mulheres. Conclusão: A prática de mindfulness evidencia-se como uma intervenção benéfica e com amplas aplicações na saúde mental feminina. Destaca-se o impacto positivo no manejo de patologias associadas ao ciclo reprodutivo e nos transtornos alimentares, recomendando-se a expansão de pesquisas com melhor qualidade metodológica que tenham como enfoque os efeitos terapêuticos no espectro da saúde mental da mulher.
... However, this evidence is not based on quantitative synthesis. In the last five years, numerous functional MRI studies have examined the functional brain processes specifically underpinning focused attention meditation (Bauer et al., 2019;Doll et al., 2016;Escrichs et al., 2019;Guidotti et al., 2021;Hiroyasu and Hiwa, 2017;Kim et al., 2019;Martínez et al., 2021;May et al., 2016;Miyoshi et al., 2019;Mooneyham et al., 2017;Scheibner et al., 2017;Tomasino and Fabbro, 2016;Weng et al., 2020a;Weng et al., 2020b). This rapid proliferation of work has generated new and complex data on the core neurobiological mechanisms of focused attention meditation. ...
... We performed meta-analyses of 10 eligible studies (Brefczynski-Lewis et al., 2007;Dickenson et al., 2013;Doll et al., 2016;Farb et al., 2013;Hasenkamp et al., 2012;Hölzel et al., 2007;Manna et al., 2010;May et al., 2016;Scheibner et al., 2017;Tomasino and Fabbro, 2016) comprising a total of 228 participants to identify convergent brain clusters that were consistently activated and deactivated during focused attention meditation compared to control conditions. This included 62 participants more than the latest comparable meta-analysis examining focused attention meditation (166 participants) . ...
... This included 62 participants more than the latest comparable meta-analysis examining focused attention meditation (166 participants) . Since the ALE algorithm requires brain coordinates of activation or deactivation as inputs, we only included studies that reported group coordinates which were statistically significant after correction for multiple comparisons, including one null finding (Doll et al., 2016). To mitigate biases (Tahmasian et al., 2019), we excluded experiments for which analyses were constrained to specific brain lobes or regions. ...
Meditation trains the mind to focus attention towards an object or experience. Among different meditation techniques, focused attention meditation is considered foundational for more advanced practices. Despite renewed interest in its functional neural correlates, there is no unified neurocognitive model of focused attention meditation developed via quantitative synthesis of contemporary literature. Hence, we performed a quantitative systematic review and meta-analysis of all functional MRI studies examining focussed attention meditation. Following PRISMA guidelines, 28 studies were included in this review, of which 10 studies (200 participants) were amenable to activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis. We found that regions comprising three key functional brain networks i.e., Default-mode, Salience, and Executive Control, were consistently implicated in focused attention meditation. Furthermore, meditation expertise, mindfulness levels and attentional skills were found to significantly influence the magnitude, but not regional extent, of activation and functional connectivity in these networks. Aggregating all evidence, we present a unified neurocognitive brain-network model of focused attention meditation.
... During a typical practice of attention to breath, mindfulness practitioners are instructed to be aware of body posture, focus on the sensations of breathing (e.g., the rise and fall of abdomen), accept the sensations of breathing as they are in the present moment, be non-judgmental of mind wandering, and return the focus of attention back to the sensations gently but firmly after digression of thoughts (Doll et al., 2016). This practice has an intention of anchoring, i.e., to be settled or grounded with the focused attention to breath and bodily sensations. ...
... 138). Their claim was supported by Doll et al. (2016) who found that attention to breath was effective in modulating aversive emotions, reducing amygdala activation, and increasing amygdala-prefrontal integration. ...
Objectives
Researchers predominantly understand mindfulness in terms of cognitivist or top-down models. However, the applicability of emotion-regulation strategies from such models in mindfulness is questionable. The aim of the current study was to determine whether emotion-regulation strategies (distraction, suppression, and cognitive reappraisal) or alternative emotion-care strategies (anchoring, acceptance, and decentering) were mechanisms that explained the effects of mindfulness on well-being.
Methods
A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 283 educators assigned to two groups (8-week mindfulness training vs. waitlist control). At three time points, T0 (baseline), T1 (post-intervention), and T2 (2-month follow-up), they completed questionnaires that measured their levels of mindfulness, well-being (i.e., general health, stress, positive and negative affect, life satisfaction), and frequency in using strategies of emotion regulation and emotion care.
Results
Participants in the mindfulness training group reported higher levels of mindfulness and well-being. They also reported more frequent use of all three emotion-care strategies but only one emotion-regulation strategy (cognitive reappraisal) than their counterparts in the control group at T1 and T2. Mediation analyses indicated that none of the three emotion-regulation strategies mediated the effects of mindfulness training on well-being. Instead, anchoring and decentering were significant mediators (p < 0.05) while acceptance was a near significant mediator (p < 0.06).
Conclusions
Emotion-care strategies instead of emotion-regulation strategies were found to be a mechanism that explained the effectiveness of mindfulness. The results offer evidence for an alternative to cognitivist or top-down models in understanding the mechanisms of mindfulness.
... For instance, an 8-week breathingbased course increased functional connectivity between the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), which was associated with enhanced emotion regulation (Kral et al., 2018). Another intervention study found that only 2-week of training integrating mindfulness and breathing practice was effective in regulating aversive emotions via increasing amygdala-prefrontal integration (Doll et al., 2016). It is suggested that amygdala-dorsal prefrontal cortex integration is a crucial neural pathway of emotion regulation induced by mindful breathing practice (Doll et al., 2016). ...
... Another intervention study found that only 2-week of training integrating mindfulness and breathing practice was effective in regulating aversive emotions via increasing amygdala-prefrontal integration (Doll et al., 2016). It is suggested that amygdala-dorsal prefrontal cortex integration is a crucial neural pathway of emotion regulation induced by mindful breathing practice (Doll et al., 2016). Therefore, the diaphragmatic breathing practice might exert its influence on the affective response via altering neural circuits related to negative affect and further contribute to the decreased unpleasant experience while observing painful conditions. ...
Although empathy for pain plays an important role in positive interpersonal relationships and encourages engagement in prosocial behavior, it remains largely unknown whether empathy for pain could be effectively altered by psychophysiological techniques. This study aimed to investigate the impact of a single session of diaphragmatic breathing practice on empathy for pain and examine the potential mechanism involving interoceptive awareness. A total of 66 healthy participants were randomly assigned to the intervention group or the control group. The intervention group received a 15‐minute diaphragmatic breathing (DB) practice with real‐time biofeedback, while the control group was to gaze at a black screen at rest and not engaged in any other activities. Before and after the invention, all participants were instructed to evaluate the intensity and unpleasantness of empathy for pain while watching different pictures with pain or non‐pain conditions. The Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA) was then administered to measure interoceptive awareness. The results indicated a significant interaction between group and time with regard to empathy for pain and MAIA. The DB group showed a statistically significant decrease in both pain intensity and unpleasantness during the pain picture condition, as well as a noteworthy increase in MAIA scores. The control group did not demonstrate any substantial changes. More importantly, the regulation of attention, a dimension of MAIA, had a significant mediating effect on the impact of diaphragmatic breathing on reported unpleasantness. Diaphragmatic breathing could serve as a simple, convenient, and practical strategy to optimize human empathy for pain that warrants further investigation, which has important implications not only for individuals with impaired empathy for pain but also for the improvement of interoceptive awareness.
... Furthermore, the use of adaptive ERSs, such as mindfulness, was linked to reduced amygdala activation in association with increased activity of DLPFC, MFG, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) parahyppocampal gyrus, hippocampus, and insula. 50,51 The involvement of this extended brain network was also replicated for several maladaptive ERSs including suppression (i.e., greater activation of IFG/VLPFC), 49 rumination (i.e., decreased activation in the left amygdala, hippocampus, ACC, and orbitofrontal cortex), 52 worry (i.e., increased activity of MFG, IFG, and anterior insula) (for a metaanalysis see reference 53), and experiential avoidance (i.e., reduced activation in the left MFG and bilateral amygdala). 54 Figure 2 graphically summarizes brain regions involved in ER processes. ...
... First, using a well-established ER network of interest (i.e. SFG, MFG, IFG, cingulate cortex, insula, parahippocampal gyrus, hippocampus, and amygdala, extracted by [49][50][51][52][53][54], we aimed at exploring: ...
Aim:
Departing from existing neurobiological models of dissociation, the current study aims at conducting a quantitative meta-analytic review of neural responses to emotional stimuli among individuals ascribed to the dissociative spectrum (DS). Accordingly, the study explored common and specific brain mechanisms across borderline personality disorder, conversion/somatoform disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD], PTSD related to repeated interpersonal traumatic experiences, dissociative disorders.
Methods:
The meta-analysis included studies that administered emotional stimuli during fMRI acquisition among individuals included in the DS. There were conducted 2 meta-analytic procedures: i) a Bayesian network meta-analysis for a region-of-interest (ROI)-based approach; ii) robust voxel-based approach.
Results:
Forty-four independent studies were included for a total of 1384 individuals (DS = 741 subjects). The network meta-analysis showed specific patterns of neural activity considering an extended brain network involved in emotion regulation for each condition ascribed to the DS. The voxel-based meta-analysis highlighted an increased activity of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex as a common neurological signature of the DS.
Conclusion:
The common neural feature of the DS captures an implicit appraisals of emotion-eliciting stimuli as threatening and/or noxious for mental and physical integrity of the individual together with painful subjective experiences associated to physiological emotional reactions. Specific brain responses across the DS suggested that the engagement in different mechanisms to address emotional stimuli - implicit avoidance reactions and attempts to over-control of affective states together with a disruption of integrative processes of emotional mind-body features. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
... Furthermore, they found that emotional and functional connectivity between the amygdala and the left dmPFC was increased during mindfulness-on-breath meditation. [24] Laneri D results show increased activations of the anterior insula and cingulate gyrus as well as the dmPFC and temporal pole after long-term mindfulness training. [25] The result of Farb et al. showed the decreased recruitment of the dmPFC during interactive attention in mindfulness meditation. ...
... Reading the mind in the eyes task Enhanced empathic accuracy-related brain activity Increased neural activity in the inferior frontal gyrus and dorsomedial PFC Doll [24] Pre-post design without control ...
Meditation is a practice of concentration and relaxation. In philosophical terms, it is a process of gaining self-consciousness. Although there is diversity in meditation (Mindfulness, compassion, transcendental, and focused attention meditation), interventions show that meditation practices improve prefrontal cortex (PFC) functions like cognition, self-awareness, attention, and memory and reduce psychological symptoms. These results are thought to be due to meditation increasing functional connections of different brain regions. We reviewed to show the functional connectivity of the prefrontal cortex in various meditation practices. We were viewed various neuroimaging interventions of functional connectivity associated with the prefrontal cortex and different brain areas during meditation techniques on healthy meditators compared with non-meditators. fMRI findings show that meditation practices are associated with increased neural function and processing, default mode network, gray matter volume, and functional coupling in the brain area related to different parts of PFC. PFC's functional connectivity is associated with increased attention, working memory, cognitive control, executive control, emotion regulation, counteracting adverse effects, self-perception, and self-compassion. Furthermore, PFC's functional connectivity decreases anxiety, depression, perceived stress, negative emotion, and hyperarousal symptoms. In this review, we outlined the published effect of meditation on the function and structure of the different parts of the prefrontal cortex. We suggest a positive theoretical correlation between meditation and the functional connectivity of the prefrontal cortex. Altered prefrontal connectivity is seen in some neurological and psychosocial disorders. Therefore meditation can also play an influential role in treating these disorders.
... Bij de zo gewenste verlaging van ons arousal-niveau speelt de ademhaling een cruciale rol. Diepe en langzame ademhaling heeft niet alleen positieve cardiovasculaire gevolgen, maar vermindert ook het arousal-niveau van amygdala en hippocampus bij een toename van prefrontalecortexactivatie (Cysarz et al. 2005;Doll 2016; Melony 2018; Amarasekera 2019). Dit maakt de op diepe ademhaling gebaseerde vormen van meditatie zo belangrijk. ...
... Deze erkennende vorm van communicatie schept vertrouwen, genereert veiligheid en creëert rust. Rust en veiligheid op hun beurt intensiveren de bloedtoevoer naar de prefrontale cortex (Doll 2016). Zo ontstaat er een positieve spiraal die zichzelf versterkt. ...
Evolutionair bepaalde neurofysiologische programma’s, actief vanuit hersengebieden als de amygdala en hippocampus, leiden tot inadequate reacties bij conflictmanagement. In dit artikel wordt een strategie voor effectief conflictmanagement aangereikt. Hoge niveaus van emotionele ‘arousal’ dienen allereerst te worden afgebouwd, ten gunste van een helder en kalm bewustzijn. In tegenstelling tot een mindset zoals die gefundeerd is in Abrahamitische religies en Westerse filosofieën, wordt een klassiek daoïstisch, non-binair, dynamisch en geünificeerd wereldbeeld voorgesteld. Hieruit wordt de strategie van wuwei, de kunst van het niet-handelen, afgeleid. Het leggen van een verbinding, als essentiële schakel bij conflictmanagement, is exemplarisch voor erkenning, appreciatie en respect. Focus bij conflictoplossing is niet het probleem, maar de achterliggende behoefte.
... Se ha hipotetizado que la forma en que la práctica de la atención plena mejora la regulación emocional es fortaleciendo los mecanismos de control prefrontales sobre las estructuras que intervienen en las respuestas emocionales, como la amígdala (Tang et al., 2015). En este sentido, existen estudios que han mostrado que la práctica de la atención plena incrementa la conectividad entre la amígdala y la corteza prefrontal en presencia de estímulos emocionales (Doll et al., 2016;Hölzel et al., 2013). Por otra parte, se encontró que el PCCBAP redujo los síntomas de TEPT en las mujeres. ...
El abuso sexual infantil (ASI) se asocia con psicopatología, deficiencias en el control inhibitorio y la regulación emocional y anormalidades en la actividad eléctrica cerebral (EEG). La atención plena es efectiva para disminuir la sintomatología del trastorno de estrés postraumático (TEPT), mejorar el control inhibitorio y la autorregulación, y genera cambios en el EEG.
El objetivo de este estudio fue determinar el efecto de un programa cognitivo conductual basado en atención plena (PCCBAP) en el control inhibitorio con estímulos emocionales, la sintomatología de TEPT y el EEG en adolescentes con ASI. Participaron 17 adolescentes con ASI en un PCCBAP de 16 sesiones. Se presentaron dos versiones de la tarea Stroop (emocional y neutra), una tarea Stop-Signal emocional y las sub-escalas de inhibición y control emocional del BRIEF. Se midieron los síntomas de depresión, ansiedad y TEPT y se registró el EEG en reposo y en meditación.
Después del PCCBAP mejoró el desempeño en las tareas Stroop y Stop-signal, y disminuyeron las puntuaciones de las escalas del BRIEF y los síntomas de TEPT. En el EEG, hubo un descenso generalizado de la potencia absoluta en delta, theta y alfa2, así como una mayor correlación interhemisférica en alfa2 y beta2. Los resultados muestran que el entrenamiento fue efectivo para disminuir los síntomas de TEPT, mejorar la atención, el control inhibitorio y la regulación emocional en adolescentes con ASI. Esto se relaciona con cambios en el EEG que indican mayor vigilancia, alertamiento, menor deambulación mental y estados de mayor
tranquilidad.
... Herrero et al. (2018) showed that successfully focusing on each breath as is commonly practiced in traditional meditation or anxiolytic breathing exercises, enhances the influence of breathing on neuronal activity (see also Fincham et al., 2023). By consciously focusing on and regulating their breathing patterns, individuals can effectively modulate their emotional state (Arch and Craske, 2006;Doll et al., 2016). Linking both cardiac and respiratory effects outlined above, slow breathing techniques can promote autonomic changes, specifically through increased heart rate variability (HRV) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; Berntson et al., 1993;Zaccaro et al., 2018). ...
... concluding that practicing mindfulness meditation can for the most part affect reducing the physical signs of stress. Useful to give mindfulness interventions emphasize cautious attention to breathing in request to control pessimistic emotions, lower amygdala activation, and work on prefrontal integration (19). The strategic features of directing attention to address mental issues and enliven the force of remembered to lessen emotional suffering are more the emphasis of mindfulness meditation (6). ...
Blood sugar levels are influenced by psychological well-being, which is affected by diabetics who go from being healthy to sick. This study examined the effect of spiritually situated mindfulness interventions on the psychological health and blood sugar levels of individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Method: A quasi-explore different avenues regarding an untreated benchmark group and ward pre-and post-test samples was the research strategy utilized. All type 2 DM patients at the Surabaya Islamic Hospital Outpatient Clinic made up the study's populace. Using a basic random sampling strategy, 130 samples in totally were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion rules. Also, the sample was split fifty, with 60 respondents each in the control and treatment groups. The Glucometer and the Ryff Psychological Well-Being Scale were the instruments utilized in this investigation. Matched sample t-test and independent sample t-test data analysis. Result: The results showed that the psychological well-being of the intervention bunch was 147.68 before the intervention and 171.32 after it. The mean blood sugar level in the gathering before the intervention was executed was 302.64, however after it was carried out, it was 189.11. In addition, the mean blood sugar levels in the benchmark group were 289.21 and 283.87 when the intervention, and the mean psychological well-being levels were 146.84 and 146.02, respectively. Furthermore, the data analysis demonstrated a negative relationship between type 2 diabetes patients' blood sugar levels and psychological well-being and mindfullnes based on spiritual intervention (p = 0.00). Discuss: Individuals with type 2 diabetes can encounter improvements in their psychological well-being by lowering their blood sugar levels through the often used mindfullnes based on spiritual intervention.
... ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.08.29.609126 doi: bioRxiv preprint We found greater equanimity during breath-watching in advanced meditators compared to other groups. In breath-watching meditation, practitioners focus attention on breath while ignoring distractions, such as mind-wandering 3,19,77,78,91 . Reduced mind wandering and increased attention focus have been consistently reported in advanced meditators from different traditions 77,90,92-100 . ...
A balanced mind, or equanimity, cultivated through meditation and other spiritual practices, is considered one of the highest mental states. Its core features include deidentification and non-duality. Despite its significance, its neural correlates remain unknown. To address this, we acquired 128-channel EEG data (n = 103) from advanced and novice meditators (from the Isha Yoga tradition) and controls during an internal attention (breath-watching) and an external attention task (visual-oddball paradigm). We calculated the auto-correlation window (ACW), a measure of brain’s intrinsic neural timescales (INTs) and assessed equanimity through self-report questionnaires. Advanced meditators showed higher levels of equanimity and shorter duration of INTs (shorter ACW) during breath-watching, indicating deidentification with mental contents. Furthermore, they demonstrated no significant differences in INTs between tasks, indicating non-dual awareness. Finally, shorter duration of INTs correlated with the participants’ subjective perceptions of equanimity. In conclusion, we show that the shorter duration of brain’s INT may serve as a neural marker of equanimity.
... As before, the majority of these studies employed either a facial expression task (eg, 43,[95][96][97][98][99], or an emotional pictures task based on IAPS-photographs depicting non-facial objects or scenes (eg, [100][101][102][103][104] ). In many of these studies, amygdala PPI was examined while participants were performing some form of emotion regulation training (eg, 100,104,105 ; see Berboth & Morawetz 106 for a meta-analysis). Furthermore, some of these studies were conducted in patients with (versus without) a psychiatric disorder-examples of which include schizophrenia 107,108 (although see Fakra et al. 109 ), MDD, 110 bipolar disorder, 111,112 PTSD 113,114 (although see Van Rooij et al. 88 ), IED 77,78 (although see Heesink et al. 90 ), BPD, 115 and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). ...
Even before the advent of fMRI, the amygdala occupied a central space in the affective neurosciences. Yet this amygdala-centred view on emotion processing gained even wider acceptance after the inception of fMRI in the early 1990s, a landmark that triggered a goldrush of fMRI studies targeting the amygdala in vivo. Initially, this amygdala fMRI research was mostly confined to task-activation studies measuring the magnitude of the amygdala’s response to emotional stimuli. Later, interest began to shift more towards the study of the amygdala’s resting-state functional connectivity and task-based psychophysiological interactions. Later still, the test-retest reliability of amygdala fMRI came under closer scrutiny, while at the same time, amygdala-based real-time fMRI neurofeedback gained widespread popularity. Each of these major subdomains of amygdala fMRI research has left its marks on the field of affective neuroscience at large. The purpose of this review is to provide a critical assessment of this literature. By integrating the insights garnered by these research branches, we aim to answer the question: What part (if any) can amygdala fMRI still play within the current landscape of affective neuroscience? Our findings show that serious questions can be raised with regard to both the reliability and validity of amygdala fMRI. These conclusions force us to cast doubt on the continued viability of amygdala fMRI as a core pilar of the affective neurosciences.
... Herrero and colleagues (2018) showed that successfully focusing on each breath as is commonly practiced in traditional meditation or anxiolytic breathing exercises, enhances the influence of breathing on neuronal activity (see also Fincham et al., 2023). By consciously focusing on and regulating their breathing patterns, individuals can effectively modulate their emotional state (Arch and Craske, 2006;Doll et al., 2016). Linking both cardiac and respiratory effects outlined above, slow breathing techniques can promote autonomic changes, specifically through increased heart rate variability (HRV) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; Berntson et al., 1993;Zaccaro et al., 2018). ...
There is growing attention towards atypical brain-body interactions and interoceptive processes and their potential role in psychiatric conditions, including affective and anxiety disorders. This paper aims to synthesize recent developments in this field. We present emerging explanatory models and focus on brain-body coupling and modulations of the underlying neurocircuitry that support the concept of a continuum of affective disorders. Grounded in theoretical frameworks like peripheral theories of emotion and predictive processing, we propose that altered interoceptive processes might represent transdiagnostic mechanisms that confer common vulnerability traits across multiple disorders. A deeper understanding of the interplay between bodily states and neural processing is essential for a holistic conceptualization of mental disorders.
... Certain brain regions crucial for attention and awareness, like the Pre-frontal Cortex, Insular Cortex, Anterior Cingulate Cortex, and Hippocampus, have been found to be altered in MBP practitioners (78,79). Studies have shown that strengthened neural connections between pre-frontal and limbic regions in Yoga and meditation practitioners contribute to reduced stress and improved well-being (80)(81)(82). ...
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about unparalleled suffering on a global scale, affecting both physical and mental well-being. In such challenging times, it becomes crucial to identify interventions that can alleviate negative mental health outcomes, such as stress, while promoting positive mental health outcomes, like well-being. We report the effectiveness of a mind–body practise, Isha Yoga, in promoting well-being.
Methods
We conducted an online survey, during the COVID-19 pandemic, with Yoga practitioners (n = 1,352) from the Isha Yoga tradition in Karnataka, India. We evaluated stress and well-being attributes using conventional psychometric questionnaires. Subsequently, we requested the Isha Yoga practitioners to share another survey with their friends and family members, assessing similar outcomes. From the respondents of this shared survey (n = 221), we identified individuals who currently did not engage in any form of Yoga or meditation, constituting the non-Yoga control group (n = 110). To enhance the reliability and validity of our study and minimize the limitations commonly associated with online surveys, we adhered to the CHERRIES guidelines for reporting survey studies.
Results
Isha Yoga practitioners had significantly lower levels of stress (p < 0.001, gHedges = 0.94) and mental distress (p < 0.001, gHedges = 0.75) while reporting significantly higher levels of well-being (p < 0.001, gHedges = 0.78) and affective balance (p < 0.001, gHedges = 0.80) compared to the control group. Furthermore, expertise-related improvements were observed in these outcomes, and a dose–response relationship was found between regularity of Isha Yoga practice and outcome changes. A minimum 3–4 days of weekly practice showed significant differences with the control group. In addition, we investigated the effect of Isha Yoga on stress and well-being among the healthcare workers (HCWs) in our sample and observed better mental health outcomes.
Discussion
These findings collectively underscore the benefits of Mind and Body practices like Isha Yoga on various aspects of mental health and well-being, emphasizing its potential as an effective and holistic approach for promoting a healthy lifestyle among diverse populations, including healthcare workers, even in difficult circumstances such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
... The amygdala, a key component of the limbic system, further modulates pain pathways through interactions with the ACC and PAG [28][29][30][31]. Greater levels of mindfulness have been associated with the downregulation of pain perception pathways involving the amygdala and the ACC [21,[32][33][34][35]. Mindfulness-based breathing intervention was reported to improve amygdala and prefrontal cortex connectivity, associated with less emotional reactivity to negative visual stimuli [36]. In line with amygdala functions [37,38], mindfulness interventions have been shown to stabilize mood and reduce depressive symptoms in chronic pain patients [39][40][41][42][43][44]. ...
In the context of chronic pain management, opioid-based treatments have been heavily relied upon, raising concerns related to addiction and misuse. Non-pharmacological approaches, such as Mindfulness-Based Pain Management, offer alternative strategies. We conducted a mechanistic clinical study to investigate the impact of an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Pain Management intervention on chronic pain, the modulation of inflammatory markers, stress physiology, and oxytocin, and their interplay with clinical pain symptoms and perception, in comparison to a patient wait-list active control. A total of 65 participants, including 50 chronic pain patients and 15 healthy controls, underwent salivary assays to assess endocrine markers, oxytocin, interleukin (IL)-1b, IL-6, IL-8, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-a, and dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEA-S). Psychological assessments were also conducted to evaluate aspects of pain perception, mindfulness, mood, and well-being. Findings revealed significant differences between chronic pain patients and healthy controls in various clinical metrics, highlighting the psychological distress experienced by patients. Following Mindfulness-Based Pain Management, oxytocin levels significantly increased in chronic pain patients, that was not observed in the patient wait-list control group. In contrast, cytokine and DHEA-S levels decreased (not to statistically significant margins) supporting anti-inflammatory effects of Mindfulness-Based Pain Management. The fact DHEA-S levels, a marker of stress, did attenuate but not to statistically meaningful levels, suggests that pain reduction was not solely related to stress reduction, and that oxytocin pathways may be more salient than previously considered. Psychological assessments demonstrated substantial improvements in pain perception and mood in the intervention group. These results contribute to the growing body of evidence regarding the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions in chronic pain management and underscore oxytocin’s potential role as a therapeutic target.
... In mindfulness meditation, instructions direct participants to nonjudgmentally attend to breathing sensations, without instructions to alter their breathing. Nevertheless, RR slows during meditation practice in novices [21][22][23] and experts 24,25 . Moreover, short-term meditation training shows similar benefits to mental health and emotional reactivity as interventions that directly manipulate breath 26,27 . ...
Mind–body interventions such as mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) may improve well-being by increasing awareness and regulation of physiological and cognitive states. However, it is unclear how practice may alter long-term, baseline physiological processes, and whether these changes reflect improved well-being. Using respiration rate (RR), which can be sensitive to effects of meditation, and 3 aspects of self-reported well-being (psychological well-being [PWB], distress, and medical symptoms), we tested pre-registered hypotheses that: (1) Lower baseline RR (in a resting, non-meditative state) would be a physiological marker associated with well-being, (2) MBSR would decrease RR, and (3) Training-related decreases in RR would be associated with improved well-being. We recruited 245 adults (age range = 18–65, M = 42.4): experienced meditators (n = 42), and meditation-naïve participants randomized to MBSR (n = 72), active control (n = 41), or waitlist control (n = 66). Data were collected at pre-randomization, post-intervention (or waiting), and long-term follow-up. Lower baseline RR was associated with lower psychological distress among long-term meditators (p* = 0.03, b = 0.02, 95% CI [0.01, 0.03]), though not in non-meditators prior to training. MBSR decreased RR compared to waitlist (p = 0.02, Cohen’s d = − 0.41, 95% CI [− 0.78, − 0.06]), but not the active control. Decreased RR related to decreased medical symptoms, across all participants (p* = 0.02, b = 0.57, 95% CI [0.15, 0.98]). Post-training, lower RR was associated with higher PWB across training groups compared to waitlist (p* = 0.01, b = 0.06, 95% CI [0.02, 0.10]), though there were no significant differences in change in PWB between groups. This physiological marker may indicate higher physical and/or psychological well-being in those who engage in wellness practices.
... Similarly, fMRI activity within brain networks such as default-mode and executive control may additionally be influenced by other nonphysiological sources, such as inter-individual variability in dispositional mindfulness (Dickenson et al., 2013;Doll et al., 2016;Mooneyham et al., 2017;Scheibner et al., 2017), and arousal and effort during meditation tasks among beginners (Britton et al., 2014). Dispositional mindfulness can also mediate attentional capacity and stability (Cásedas et al., 2022;Di Francesco et al., 2017), which may in turn influence an individual's ability to sustain focus on breathing sensations in the MRI scanner. ...
... Also of interest is the amygdala, a brain area strongly associated with fight/flight stress reactivity and mental health problems generally. A study by Doll et al. (2016) found concentration meditation to increase connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and amygdala, resulting in decreased amygdala overactivity and concomitantly improved mental health outcomes. Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has been shown to decrease overactivity in both default mode network activity (Palhano-Fontes et al., 2015) and amygdala connectivity (Mertens et al., 2020). ...
Objectives
The mindfulness-informed intervention that has so far received the most attention as an adjunct to psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), but little remains known about potential synergies between psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and mindfulness-based interventions such as Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). This paper examines and evaluates the therapeutic compatibility of MBCT with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and their potential synergies.
Methods
This study represents a narrative review of the current literature on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and MBCT.
Results
We demonstrate how MBCT targets core processes including acceptance, being present, concentration, decentering and embracing difficulties — and outline why strengthening these capacities with systematic meditation training may prove invaluable during the preparation, dosing and integration phases of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.
Conclusions
MBCT’s emphasis on systematic training in mindfulness meditation and fostering nonjudgmental presence aligns well with the states of consciousness induced by psychedelics, highlighting its potential to enhance various stages of both the psychedelic experience and subsequent integration. By equipping individuals with effective mindfulness and cognitive restructuring techniques, MBCT may offer advantages beyond those provided by ACT, such as the ability to skillfully navigate and manage challenging experiences that can emerge during different phases of the psychedelic experience and integration. This suggests that MBCT’s unique approach may complement psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in ways that ACT may not fully address, particularly in the context of handling challenging experiences.
... In adults, there is evidence that the structural integrity of the uncinate fasciculus (Ben-Soussan et al., 2020;Piervincenzi et al., 2017;Tang et al., 2012) or the degree of functional connectivity between the amygdala and prefrontal regions (Doll et al., 2016;Gotink et al., 2016) can be strengthened by training in a variety of mindfulness-based techniques. Joss et al. (2020Joss et al. ( , 2021 reported that mindfulness training also affected relative increases in hippocampal volume that were associated with performance on an episodic memory task as well as stress and depression levels. ...
Background
Childhood maltreatment is one of the most important preventable risk factors for a wide variety of psychiatric disorders. Further, when psychiatric disorders emerge in maltreated individuals they typically do so at younger ages, with greater severity, more psychiatric comorbid conditions, and poorer response to established treatments, resulting in a more pernicious course with an increased risk for suicide. Practitioners treating children, adolescents, and young adults with psychiatric disorders will likely encounter the highest prevalence of clients with early‐onset maltreatment‐associated psychiatric disorders. These may be some of their most challenging cases.
Method
In this report, we explore key validated alterations in brain structure, function, and connectivity associated with exposure to childhood maltreatment as potential mechanisms behind their patients' clinical presentations.
Results
We then summarize key behavioral presentations likely associated with neurobiological alterations and propose a toolkit of established trauma and skills‐based strategies that may help diminish symptoms and foster recovery. We also discuss how some of these alterations may serve as latent vulnerability factors for the possible development of future psychopathology.
Conclusions
Research on the neurobiological consequences of childhood adversity provides a vastly enriched biopsychosocial understanding of the developmental origins of health and pathology that will hopefully lead to fundamental advances in clinical psychology and psychiatry.
... During mindful breathing, one needs to make deliberate attempts to redirect the mind's attention from fragmentary thoughts to the inhalation and exhalation of the breath, which always happens at the present moment. An fMRI study by Doll et al. (2016) found that healthy adults who were trained to pay attention to their breath when viewing aversive images showed less negative responses, suggesting that mindful breathing can reduce activations in the amygdala while also increases neural connectivity between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. In terms of academic anxiety, Cho et al. (2016) reported that practicing mindful breathing in just one week could produce positive effects on college students' automatic thoughts and test anxiety. ...
Considering the heightened needs for an internet-based approach to alleviating psychological symptoms during global health crises, we conducted a series of experiments to investigate the effects of online mindfulness-based programs on Covid-related stress, mental well-being, and general anxiety in college students. In Study 1, thirty college students participated in either a wait-list control (n = 14) or an experimental group (n = 16) practicing a weekly mindfulness-based stress reduction program delivered via video-conferencing in 4 weeks. Outcomes variables were measured with the Covid-19 Stress Scale and the WHO-5 Well-Being Index. A significant difference in the stress level of the experimental group as compared to the control group was found, but not for the well-being level. To test whether a shorter and more compact course of intervention including only the practice of
mindful breathing could still produce positive results on more general anxiety and not Covid-related, Study 2 recruited a larger sample (N = 65) and conducted the experiment in 7 consecutive days. The results showed that this online daily practice of standalone mindful breathing significantly reduced self-reported state and trait anxiety. We discuss the possibilities and limitations of short-term online mindfulness-based interventions for young adults in global emergency contexts.
... Our study also provides preliminary evidence that mindfulness meditation training may reduce hyperresponsivity to unpredictable threat as measured by the APS. As the response to unpredictable threat is thought to involve the amygdala (for review see (5)), our finding is consistent with prior work showing changes to amygdala activity and functional connectivity following mindfulness meditation training (30)(31)(32). In particular, patients with generalized anxiety disorder who completed MBSR exhibited decreased amygdala responsivity to neutral (ambiguous) faces during an affect labeling task, and also increased functional connectivity between the amygdala and areas in the prefrontal cortex (33). ...
Background:
Biological markers for anxiety disorders may further understanding of disorder pathophysiology and suggest potential targeted treatments. The fear-potentiated startle (FPS, a measure of startle to predictable threat) and anxiety-potentiated startle (APS, startle to unpredictable threat) laboratory paradigm has been used to detect physiological differences in anxiety disorders compared to non-anxious controls, and in pharmacological challenge studies in healthy adults. However, little is known about how startle may change with treatment for anxiety disorders, and no data are available regarding alterations due to mindfulness meditation training.
Methods:
Ninety-three individuals with anxiety disorders and 66 healthy individuals completed two sessions of the neutral, predictable, and unpredictable (NPU) threat task, which employs a startle probe and the threat of shock to assess moment-by-moment fear and anxiety. Between the two testing sessions, patients received randomized 8-week treatment with either escitalopram or Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).
Results:
APS, but not FPS, was higher in participants with anxiety compared to healthy controls at baseline. Further, there was a significantly greater decrease in APS for both treatment groups compared to controls, with the patient groups showing reductions bringing them into the range of controls at the end of the treatment.
Conclusions:
Both anxiety treatments (escitalopram and MBSR) reduced startle potentiation during unpredictable (APS) but not predictable (FPS) threat. These findings further validate APS as a biological correlate of pathological anxiety and provide physiological evidence for the impact of MBSR on anxiety disorders, suggesting that there may be comparable effects of the two treatments on anxiety neurocircuitry.
... BCLC may want to review whether a wider range of counselling opportunities can be provided to VSE clients, such as debt counselling or marital or relationship counselling, as these issues appear to be concurrent with problem gambling. Furthermore, as many of the participants struggled with emotional regulation, mindfulness programming may be a useful area to explore as a treatment option, as research has supported its use in reducing feelings of trauma, distress, depression, and addiction (Arch & Ayers, 2013;Chopko & Schwartz, 2012;Doll et al., 2016;Keng et al., 2011;Williams et al., 2010;Zgierska et al., 2009). Mindfulness may be a strategy that VSE clients can use successfully when experiencing urges to gamble or preoccupation with gambling. ...
Results of the third longitudinal study of the British Columbia Lottery Corporation's Voluntary Self-Exclusion program.
https://cjr.ufv.ca/a-review-of-bclcs-voluntary-self-exclusion-program-client-behaviours-experiences-and-perceptions/
... Therefore, lack of physiological artifact removal or correction during fMRI analysis can impact conclusions about the neurobiological underpinnings of meditation, including focused attention meditation. Similarly, fMRI activity in some brain areas within networks such as Default-mode and Executive Control may additionally be influenced by other nonphysiological sources, such as inter-individual variability in dispositional mindfulness (Dickenson et al., 2013;Doll et al., 2016;Mooneyham et al., 2017;Scheibner et al., 2017), and level of arousal and effort during meditation tasks among beginners (Britton et al., 2014). Therefore, controlling for these measures that are entrenched with brain responses to meditation can potentially enable separating the neurobiological underpinnings of meditation from other attributes that may influence meditation performance. ...
Objectives
Mapping the neurobiology of meditation using 3 Tesla functional MRI (fMRI) has burgeoned recently. However, limitations in signal quality and neuroanatomical resolution have impacted reliability and precision of extant findings. Although ultra-high strength 7 Tesla MRI overcomes these limitations, investigation of meditation using 7 Tesla fMRI is still in its infancy.
Methods
In this feasibility study, we scanned 10 individuals who were beginner meditators using 7 Tesla fMRI while they performed focused attention meditation and non-focused rest. We also measured and adjusted the fMRI signal for key physiological differences between meditation and rest. Finally, we explored the 2-week impact of the single fMRI meditation session on mindfulness, anxiety and focused attention attributes.
Results
Group-level task fMRI analyses revealed significant reductions in activity during meditation relative to rest in Default-mode network hubs, i.e., antero-medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices, precuneus, as well as visual and thalamic regions. These findings survived stringent statistical corrections for fluctuations in physiological responses which demonstrated significant differences (p < 0.05/n, Bonferroni controlled) between meditation and rest. Compared to baseline, State Mindfulness Scale (SMS) scores were significantly elevated (F = 8.16, p<0.05/n, Bonferroni controlled) following the fMRI meditation session, and were closely maintained at 2-week follow up.
Conclusions
This pilot study establishes the feasibility and utility of investigating focused attention meditation using ultra-high strength (7 Tesla) fMRI, by supporting widespread evidence that focused attention meditation attenuates Default-mode activity responsible for self-referential processing. Future functional neuroimaging studies of meditation should control for physiological confounds and include behavioural assessments.
... Prior work suggests that this nonreactive mental stance is related to psychological distancing through "defusion" or "decentering" from one's emotional experience, ultimately supporting emotion regulation (28,29). For example, mindfully attending to interfering sources of anxiety and craving may help one down-regulate those affective states (44,(69)(70)(71). Taken together, these regional (de)activations and their functions suggest a putative neural process. ...
Mindful attention is characterized by acknowledging the present experience as a transient mental event. Early stages of mindfulness practice may require greater neural effort for later efficiency. Early effort may self-regulate behavior and focalize the present, but this understanding lacks a computational explanation. Here we used network control theory as a model of how external control inputs-operationalizing effort-distribute changes in neural activity evoked during mindful attention across the white matter network. We hypothesized that individuals with greater network controllability, thereby efficiently distributing control inputs, effectively self-regulate behavior. We further hypothesized that brain regions that utilize greater control input exhibit shorter intrinsic timescales of neural activity. Shorter timescales characterize quickly discontinuing past processing to focalize the present. We tested these hypotheses in a randomized controlled study that primed participants to either mindfully respond or naturally react to alcohol cues during fMRI and administered text reminders and measurements of alcohol consumption during 4 wk postscan. We found that participants with greater network controllability moderated alcohol consumption. Mindful regulation of alcohol cues, compared to one's own natural reactions, reduced craving, but craving did not differ from the baseline group. Mindful regulation of alcohol cues, compared to the natural reactions of the baseline group, involved more-effortful control of neural dynamics across cognitive control and attention subnetworks. This effort persisted in the natural reactions of the mindful group compared to the baseline group. More-effortful neural states had shorter timescales than less effortful states, offering an explanation for how mindful attention promotes being present.
... For example, respiration is shown to modulate visual perceptual sensitivity, mediated by alpha power (Kluger et al., 2021). Respiration is also the key component in mindfulness meditation, which has been repeatedly shown to have modulatory effects on brain function (Doll et al., 2016). Furthermore, the coupling between neural activity and respiration may facilitate our understanding of brain disease. ...
Respiration can induce motion and CO 2 fluctuation during resting-state fMRI (rsfMRI) scans, which will lead to non-neural artifacts in the rsfMRI signal. In the meantime, as a crucial physiologic process, respiration that can directly drive neural activity change in the brain, and may thereby modulate the rsfMRI signal. Nonetheless, this potential neural component in the respiration-fMRI relationship is largely unexplored. To elucidate this issue, here we simultaneously recorded the electrophysiology, rsfMRI and respiration signals in rats. Our data show that respiration is indeed associated with neural activity changes, evidenced by a phase-locking relationship between slow respiration variations and the gamma-band power of the electrophysiologic signal recorded in the anterior cingulate cortex. Intriguingly, slow respiration variations are also linked to a characteristic rsfMRI network, which is mediated by gamma-band neural activity. In addition, this respiration-related brain network disappears when brain-wide neural activity is silenced at an iso-electrical state, while the respiration is maintained, further confirming the necessary role of neural activity in this network. Taken together, this study identifies a respiration-related brain network underpinned by neural activity, which represents a novel component in the respiration-rsfMRI relationship that is distinct from respiration-related rsfMRI artifacts. It opens a new avenue for investigating the interactions between respiration, neural activity and resting-state brain networks in both healthy and diseased conditions.
... Tai Chi highly values coordination of the body, mind, and breath. The "Qichen Dantian," which means deep breathing to the belly, is an essential requirement of Tai Chi and is related to the subconscious control of the PFC [39]. ...
Tai Chi is an effective strategy for slowing cognitive decline, although the underlying mechanism remains unclear. We designed a cross-sectional study to examine brain functional connectivity in middle-aged Hong Chuan Tai Chi practitioners. Eighteen middle-aged Hong Chuan Tai Chi practitioners and 22 age-matched Tai Chi-naïve controls completed functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) tests to evaluate oxyhemoglobin changes in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), motor cortex (MC), and occipital cortex (OC) in five frequency intervals (I, 0.6-2 Hz; II, 0.145-0.6 Hz; III, 0.052-0.145 Hz; IV, 0.021-0.052 Hz; V, 0.0095-0.021 Hz). Wavelet phase coherence was used to analyze the match between the instantaneous phases of the two signals to accurately measure brain functional connectivity. Global cognition was measured using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment scale. Compared with the control group, Hong Chuan Tai Chi practitioners had better global cognition (p < 0.01) and showed higher functional connectivity of the PFC, MC, and OC in intervals I, III, VI, and V in the resting state within the same brain hemispheres or between the left and right hemispheres. Our findings revealed that middle-aged Hong Chuan Tai Chi practitioners had higher functional connectivity of the PFC, MC, and OC across both brain hemispheres in cardiac activity, myogenic activity, sympathetic nervous system, and endothelial cell metabolic activities which may contribute to higher global cognition.
... With breathing techniques, a person consciously and voluntarily changes one or more respiration parameters (e.g., breath pace, breathing depth, or inspiration/expiration ratio). This is different from other relaxation techniques, such as mindfulness or meditation, where a person merely directs his attention to the act of breathing without actually changing it (i.e., breath awareness) (31). Different breathing techniques already exist today. ...
Sleep problems, like insomnia, are a prevalent condition associated with major health risks. Prevention and treatment of sleep problems are thus essential to preserve physical and mental health. Previous work supports the effectiveness of breathing guidance for sleep problems and recommends breathing exercises as an effective intervention for insomnia. While new technologies can support breathing guidance, such novel devices should be assessed for effectiveness and usability to facilitate implementation and continued use. The current pilot study investigates the acceptability and usability of a mobile tactile breathing device and explores its potential impact on subjective sleep quality. In this mixed-method pilot study, 39 participants tested the breathing device for one month in naturalistic circumstances. We collected their experiences, subjective sleep quality, and feedback regarding the usability of the device and the accompanying app through a survey in a pre-post design. The results show that the breathing device is an acceptable solution for sleep problems and participants particularly appreciate the standalone function and design. Nevertheless, important points of attention, such as the size of the device, were also identified. Explorative analyses suggest that subjective sleep quality improved after using the device and accompanying app. The current study supports the usability and acceptability of a tactile breath pacer and provides preliminary evidence supporting a positive impact of the technology on the sleep quality of participants. Recommendations for developers of breathing technologies and eHealth are devised based on the findings.
Mind–body practices such as meditation are growing in popularity worldwide as effective methods for reducing stress and enhancing well-being. A vast body of literature explores the brain oscillations underlying these practices. However, neuroscientific studies on mind–body practices within Yogic traditions, such as Isha Yoga, remain limited. The present study addresses this gap and aims to provide valuable insights into the impact of Isha Yoga practices on brain oscillations and mental well-being.
We conducted a cross-sectional study with advanced meditators (n = 42), novice meditators (n = 33) from the Isha Yoga tradition from India, and meditation-naïve controls (n = 28). We collected high-density (128-channel) EEG recordings during various Isha Yoga practices, including alternate nostril-breathing pranayama, breath-watching, and shoonya meditation (non-dual awareness practice; non-duality refers to an experience that is undivided by dualities, such as self and other). We further examined meditation depth and various psychological outcomes using standard questionnaires.
Brain oscillatory dynamics of Isha meditators were significantly different from those of controls. Advanced meditators demonstrated distinctive trait effects, including heightened frontal mid-line theta, alpha, and beta power at rest. During pranayama and breath-watching, both novice and advanced meditators displayed increases in power in all the frequency bands compared to rest, indicative of a state of relaxed alertness. During shoonya, when compared to rest, we observed reduced power in all frequency bands in novice meditators and controls, while advanced meditators showed sustained power in all bands. Further, meditation depth questionnaire findings during breath-watching and shoonya meditation indicated advanced meditators achieved greater meditation depth and non-duality, suggesting experience of deeper states of consciousness. Finally, we found significant associations between the practice of Isha Yoga and better mental-health outcomes such as lower perceived stress and mental distress, and higher well-being.
The results highlight a state of relaxed alertness and better psychological outcomes in both novice and advanced meditators compared to controls. Advanced meditators also report experiencing states of non-duality during breath-watching and Shoonya. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the positive impact of Isha Yoga practices on brain function and mental well-being. In the face of rising mental health challenges, mind–body practices such as Isha Yoga could provide substantial benefits to the wider population.
This study is not preregistered.
Physiological regulation strategies can be effective in reducing anxiety. However, while these strategies are often learned and practised under low‐stress conditions, they are more likely to be required under conditions of high stress. We created virtual reality (VR) biofeedback games to both teach participants a breathing technique and then practise that technique under stress. We present two studies: the first provides a proof of concept, demonstrating that participants can apply the breathing technique during stress, with a significant lowering of both respiration rate and increase in heart rate variability (HRV) under stress ( p < .001). The second study explicitly evaluated the effectiveness of training by comparing trained and untrained groups. Training was associated with a significantly greater HRV ( p = .008) under stress. In within‐group comparisons of HRV during stress compared to a baseline stressor presented before training, the trained group showed a significantly greater increase compared to untrained controls ( p = .025). Our results show the feasibility and potential effectiveness of VR‐based games for biofeedback training under experimentally applied stress. This may offer the opportunity for clinical techniques to more closely reflect the circumstances under which those techniques will be required.
Being in the present moment is one of the most important and helpful skills for traumatized people (Fisher 1999). To acquire and develop it, mindfulness and self-awareness are necessary. Hence, both form fundamental elements of stabilization, enabling us to act on our body in a regulating way, so that our inner self can calm down. With their help we can center ourselves and come into our core. Moreover, we can gain inner distance to stirring, burdensome and threatening emotions, thoughts, memories, inner images and body sensations.
Meditation, mental training that aims to improve one’s ability to regulate their cognition, has been widely applied in clinical medicine. However, the mechanism by which meditation affects brain activity is still unclear. To explore this question, electroencephalogram data were recorded in 20 long-term meditators and 20 nonmeditators during 2 high-level cognitive tasks (meditation and mental calculation) and a relaxed resting state (control). Then, the power spectral density and phase synchronization of the electroencephalogram were extracted and compared between these 2 groups. In addition, machine learning was used to discriminate the states within each group. We found that the meditation group showed significantly higher classification accuracy and calculation efficiency than the control group. Then, during the calculation task, both the power and global phase synchronism of the gamma response decreased in meditators compared to their relaxation state; yet, no such change was observed in the control group. A potential explanation for our observations is that meditation improved the flexibility of the brain through neural plastic mechanism. In conclusion, we provided robust evidence that long-term meditation experience could produce detectable neurophysiological changes in brain activity, which possibly enhance the functional segregation and/or specialization in the brain.
Objective: College students experience intense anxiety, for which biofeedback mindfulness techniques show effectiveness in relief. However, typical biofeedback products often lead to user fatigue and boredom because of a single or fixed feedback and lack of focus on mindfulness enhancement. Materials and Methods: In this research, we developed Mindjourney, a VR-based respiratory feedback mindfulness system, designed to enhance mindfulness and alleviate anxiety through continuous/noncontinuous feedback and nonjudgmental reward/punishment for self-perception and attention management. A randomized controlled trial involved 72 college students, split equally into short-term (n = 34, age: 23.11 ± 1.729) and 4-week long-term (n = 38, age: 24.12 ± 1.408) groups, with equal randomization for intervention and control groups. Pre/postintervention tests were measured by using Trait Anxiety Inventory (TAI) and Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) for long-term groups and Galvanic Skin Response and State Anxiety Inventory (SAI) for short-term groups. Results: Results showed that the long-term intervention group showed a significant increase in mindfulness (P = 0.001 for FFMQ total score). Furthermore, observe and act with awareness subscales showed significant increase after intervention (P = 0.034 for observe, P < 0.001 for act with awareness) compared with the control group. Both intervention groups demonstrated a significant decrease in anxiety levels compared with the control groups (P = 0.049 for SAI, P = 0.01 for TAI). Moreover, participants expressed high interest in this biofeedback mindfulness system and willingness for long-term usage. Conclusion: The proposed biofeedback mindfulness practice system could potentially facilitate mindfulness practice and serve as a convenient tool for anxiety relief in campus college students.
Emotion recognition based on electroencephalography (EEG) signals has emerged as a prominent research field, facilitating objective evaluation of diseases like depression and motion detection for heathy people. Starting from the basic concepts of temporal-frequency-spatial features in EEG and the methods for cross-domain feature fusion. This survey then extends the overfitting challenge of EEG single-modal to the problem of heterogeneous modality modeling in multi-modal conditions. It explores issues such as feature selection, sample scarcity, cross-subject emotional transfer, physiological knowledge discovery, multi-modal fusion methods and modality missing. These findings provide clues for researchers to further investigate emotion recognition based on EEG signals.
During states of anxiety, fundamental threat circuitry in the brain can increase heart rate via alterations in autonomic balance (increased sympathetic activity and parasympathetic withdrawal) and may serve to promote interoceptive integration and awareness of cardiac signals. Moreover, evidence indicates pathological anxiety could be associated with increased communication between the brain and the heart. Yet, this phenomenon remains not well understood. For instance, studies in this area have been conducted within the confines of tightly controlled experimental paradigms. Whether anxiety impacts brain-heart communication outside of such experimental settings, and in relatively more naturalistic contexts, is less clear. Here, we used a suspenseful movie fMRI paradigm to study induced anxiety (n=29 healthy volunteers; Caltech Conte dataset). We predicted that brain responses across an anxiety-relevant ‘defensive response network’ (amygdala, hypothalamus, periaqueductal gray, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, subgenual anterior cingulate, and anterior insula; Abend et al., 2022) would show increased coherence with heart rate as participants watched a suspenseful movie clip compared to a non-suspenseful movie clip. Counter to our predictions, we found decreased coherence between heart rate and brain responses during increased anxiety, namely in amygdala-prefrontal circuitry. We suggest these alterations may be underpinned by parasympathetic withdrawal and/or decreased interoceptive awareness during suspenseful movie-watching.
Objective:
To determine the effectiveness of mindfulness interventions on anxiety through a systematic review.
Method:
Systematic review by searching articles through the PubMed, ProQuest, Science Direct, Wiley Library, Sage Journal, and Cochrane Library databases with publication years January 2012 to January 2022 RESULTS: Eleven articles met the inclusion criteria covering several countries, including Canada 1 article, Egypt 1 article, Taiwan 1 article, Amsterdam 2 articles, Iran 1 article, Austria 1 article, San Francisco 1 article, Germany 1 article, Sweden 1 article, China 1 article, and Spain 1 article.
Conclusions:
Management of anxiety about childbirth is important for pregnant women. Mindfulness interventions are effective for reducing anxiety about labor and increasing comfort during labor. Mindfulness intervention mechanisms have the potential to reduce anxiety by increasing skills to regulate emotions.
Introduction
Patients with chronic dizziness often have an unremarkable laboratory vestibular examination and have medical clearance from other specialties. However, functional impairments are still significant and affect patients' quality of life. Recent diagnostic criteria and identification of persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) have helped us to better understand the psychological-somatic manifestations of organic disorders. As the literature suggests good efficacy using a combination of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and vestibular rehabilitation, we compared the efficacy of a hybrid protocol using dizziness handicap inventory (DHI) as an outcome measure amongst the different sub-types of chronic dizziness.
Methods
This was an observational study with 35 participants allocated to three different groups: those who strictly fulfilled the PPPD criteria, those with spontaneous episodic vestibular syndrome, and participants with non-specific dizziness. We compared the DHI total and sub-domain scores at baseline and 6 months post-intervention for differences. All participants undertook three sessions in 6 months.
Results
The total DHI scores were reduced in all three groups. However, the DHI total on average was 11 points higher in the episodic vestibular syndrome group. The emotional sub-domain scores were also reduced in all three groups, but the functional and physical scores were significantly higher in the episodic vestibular group.
Conclusion
A hybrid protocol worked best for typical PPPD patients who strictly fulfilled the criteria followed by participants in the non-specific dizziness group. When symptoms were episodic in spontaneous vestibular syndrome, only emotional handicap was reduced at 6 months, but functional and physical handicap scores remained high. Regardless, the DHI total scores in all groups were significantly reduced, possibly due to CBT reducing the anxiety that results from a lack of understanding of the clinical diagnoses.
Conventional Buddhist texts illustrate meditation as a condition of relaxed alertness that must fend against extreme hypoarousal (sleep, drowsiness) and extreme hyperarousal (restlessness). Theoretical, neurophysiological, and neuroimaging investigations of meditation have highlighted the relaxing effects and hypoarousing without emphasizing the alertness-promoting effects. Here we performed a systematic review supported by an activation-likelihood estimate (ALE) meta-analysis in an effort to counterbalance the surfeit of scholarship emphasizing the hypoarousing and relaxing effects of different forms of Buddhist meditation. Specifically, the current systematic review-cum-meta-analytical review seeks to highlight more support for meditation’s wake-promoting effects by drawing from neuroimaging research during wakefulness and meditation. In this systematic review and meta-analysis of 22 fMRI studies, we aim to highlight support for Buddhist meditation’s wake-promoting or arousing effects by identifying brain regions associated with alertness during meditation. The most significant peaks were localized medial frontal gyrus (MFG) and precuneus. We failed to determine areas ostensibly common to alertness-related meditation such as the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), superior parietal lobule, basal ganglia, thalamus, most likely due to the relatively fewer fMRI investigations that used wakefulness-promoting meditation techniques. Also, we argue that forthcoming research on meditation, related to alertness or wakefulness, continues to adopt a multi-modal method to investigate the correlation between actual behaviors and neural networks connected to Buddhist meditation. Moreover, we recommend the implementation of fMRI paradigms on Buddhist meditation with clinically diagnosed participants to complement recent trends in psychotherapy such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT).
It is well-established that the brainstem is responsible for the automatic control of breathing, however, cortical areas control perception and conscious breathing. This study investigated activity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) during breathing difficulty using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). It was hypothesized that extrinsic inspiratory loads will elicit regional changes in PFC activity and increased perception ratings, as a function of load magnitude and type. Participants were exposed to varying magnitudes of resistive (R) and pressure threshold (PT) inspiratory loads to increase breathing effort. Perception ratings of breathing effort and load magnitude were positively correlated (p < 0.05). PT loads were rated more effortful than R loads (p < 0.05). Differences in perceived effort were a function of inspiratory pressure-time-product (PTP) and inspiratory work of breathing (WoB). PFC activity increased with the largest PT load (p < 0.01), suggesting that the PFC is involved in processing respiratory stimuli. The results support the hypothesis that the PFC is an element of the neural network mediating effortful breathing perception.
Introduction
In trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), stabilization techniques are used before confrontation ones to increase stress/affect tolerance and thus effectiveness of CBT. This study investigated the effects of pranayama, meditative yoga breathing and breath holding techniques, as a complimentary stabilization technique in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Methods
Seventy-four PTSD-patients (84% female, 44.2 ± 13 years) were randomized to receive either pranayama at the beginning of each TF-CBT session or TF-CBT alone. The primary outcome was self-reported PTSD severity after 10 sessions of TF-CBT. Secondary outcomes included quality of life, social participation, anxiety, depression, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, body awareness, breath-holding duration, acute emotional reaction to stress, and adverse events (AEs). Intention-to-treat (ITT) and exploratory per-protocol (PP) analyses of covariance with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were performed.
Results
ITT analyses revealed no significant differences on primary or secondary outcomes, except for breath-holding duration in favor of pranayama-assisted TF-CBT (20.81 s, 95%CI = 13.05|28.60). PP analyses of 31 patients without AEs during pranayama revealed significantly lower PTSD severity (−5.41, 95%CI = -10.17|-0.64) and higher mental quality of life (4.89, 95%CI = 1.38|8.41) than controls. In contrast, patients with AEs during pranayama breath holding reported significantly higher PTSD severity (12.39, 95%CI = 5.08|19.71) than controls. Concurrent somatoform disorders were found to be a significant moderator of change in PTSD severity (p = 0.029).
Conclusion
In PTSD patients without concurrent somatoform disorders, the integration of pranayama into TF-CBT might reduce post-traumatic symptoms and increase mental quality of life more efficiently than TF-CBT alone. The results remain preliminary until they can be replicated by ITT analyses.
Clinical trial registration
ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier NCT03748121.
Auch wenn es für uns alle einfach erscheint, lernbereit zu sein, erfordert es doch den Mut, sich vielen und teilweise unbequemen Lernerfahrungen auszusetzen. Wichtig ist zu verstehen, dass das meiste lernbar ist, dass Fehler eine große Hilfe sein können und dass es grundsätzlich auf den eigenen Mindset ankommt. Gewisse Übungen helfen dabei, das eigene Gehirn fürs Lernen zu öffnen und den Fokus darauf zu legen, eine Kultur des Lernens im eigenen Team oder im Unternehmen zu schaffen.
Abstrak Penelitian ini bertujuan menguji teknik centering dan empty chair yang diintegrasikan untuk meningkatkan kemampuan regulasi emosi pada individu dengan Sindrom Asperger (SA). Metode yang digunakan adalah studi kasus dengan subjek seorang laki-laki berusia 24 tahun yang memiliki Sindrom Asperger. Subjek mengalami kesulitan dalam mengelola berbagai emosi yang intens dirasakan, diantaranya marah, sedih, dan cemas. Subjek juga menunjukkan gejala depresi, kecemasan, dan distress yang signifikan. Peneliti menggunakan teknik centering dan empty chair secara terintegrasi. Centering dilaksanakan sebanyak 4 sesi dan empty chair sebanyak 2 sesi dalam kurun waktu 6 minggu (1 sesi tiap minggu). Secara kuantitatif, skor depresi, kecemasan, dan distress subjek mengalami penurunan. Adapun berdasarkan feedback dari subjek, centering dirasa membantu subjek untuk meregulasi emosinya dan meningkatkan penerimaan terhadap kondisi saat ini. Empty chair membantu subjek untuk mengekspresikan emosi dan melakukan resolusi konflik secara lebih adaptif. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian dapat disimpulkan bahwa teknik centering dan empty chair efektif untuk meningkatkan kemampuan regulasi emosi pada subjek penelitian yang memiliki SA. Kata kunci : Centering, Empty Chair, Sindrom Asperger Abstract This study aims to exam integrated centering and empty chair techniques to improve emotion regulation capabilities in individuals with Asperger Syndrome. The study used a case study method with the subject of a 24-year-old man with Asperger Syndrome. Subject had difficulty managing various intense emotions, including anger, sadness, and anxiety. Subject also showed significant symptoms of depression, anxiety, and distress. Researchers used integrated centering and empty chair techniques. Centering was held as many as 4 sessions and empty chair as many as 2 sessions within a period of 6 weeks (1 session per week). Quantitatively, the subject' depression, anxiety, and distress scores decreased. Based on feedback from the subject, centering helped him regulate his emotions and increase acceptance of the current condition. Empty chairs could help the subject express emotions and perform conflict resolution more adaptively. These results show that the centering and empty chair techniques are effective in improving emotional regulation abilities in subject with Asperger Syndrome. Keywords : Centering, Empty Chair, Asperger Syndrome
Dealing with one's emotions is a core skill in everyday life. Effective cognitive control strategies have been shown to be neurobiologically represented in prefrontal structures regulating limbic regions. In addition to cognitive strategies, mindfulness-associated methods are increasingly applied in psychotherapy. We compared the neurobiological mechanisms of these two strategies, i.e., cognitive reappraisal and mindfulness, during both the cued expectation and perception of negative and potentially negative
emotional pictures. Fifty-three healthy participants were examined with functional magnetic resonance imaging (47 participants included in analysis). Twenty-four subjects applied mindfulness, 23 used cognitive reappraisal. On the neurofunctional level, both strategies were associated with comparable activity of the medial prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. When expecting negative versus neutral stimuli, the
mindfulness group showed stronger activations in ventro- and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, supramarginal gyrus as well as in the left insula. During the perception of negative versus neutral stimuli, the two groups only differed in an increased activity in the caudate in the cognitive group. Altogether, both strategies recruited overlapping brain regions known to be involved in emotion regulation. This result suggests that common neural circuits are involved in the emotion regulation by mindfulness-based and cognitive reappraisal strategies. Identifying differential activations being associated with the two strategies in this study might be one step towards a better understanding of differential mechanisms of change underlying frequently used psychotherapeutic interventions.
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is thought to involve deficits in emotion regulation, and more specifically, deficits in cognitive reappraisal. However, evidence for such deficits is mixed.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of blood oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal, we examined reappraisal-related behavioral and neural responses in 27 participants with generalized SAD and 27 healthy controls (HC) during three socio-emotional tasks: (1) looming harsh faces (Faces); (2) videotaped actors delivering social criticism (Criticism); and (3) written autobiographical negative self-beliefs (Beliefs).
Behaviorally, compared to HC, participants with SAD had lesser reappraisal-related reduction in negative emotion in the Beliefs task. Neurally, compared to HC, participants with SAD had lesser BOLD responses in reappraisal-related brain regions when reappraising faces, in visual and attention related regions when reappraising criticism, and in the left superior temporal gyrus when reappraising beliefs. Examination of the temporal dynamics of BOLD responses revealed late reappraisal-related increased responses in HC, compared to SAD. In addition, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), which showed reappraisal-related increased activity in both groups, had similar temporal dynamics in SAD and HC during the Faces and Criticism tasks, but greater late response increases in HC, compared to SAD, during the Beliefs task. Reappraisal-related greater late DMPFC responses were associated with greater percent reduction in negative emotion ratings in SAD patients.
These results suggest a dysfunction of cognitive reappraisal in SAD patients, with overall reduced late brain responses in prefrontal regions, particularly when reappraising faces. Decreased late activity in the DMPFC might be associated with deficient reappraisal and greater negative reactivity.
ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00380731.
Mindfulness training aims to impact emotion regulation. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms can be successfully addressed through mindfulness-based interventions. This preliminary study is the first to investigate neural mechanisms of symptom improvements in GAD following mindfulness training. Furthermore, we compared brain activation between GAD patients and healthy participants at baseline. 26 patients with a current DSM-IV GAD diagnosis were randomized to an 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR, N = 15) or a stress management education (SME, N = 11) active control program. 26 healthy participants were included for baseline comparisons. BOLD response was assessed with fMRI during affect labeling of angry and neutral facial expressions. At baseline, GAD patients showed higher amygdala activation than healthy participants in response to neutral, but not angry faces, suggesting that ambiguous stimuli reveal stronger reactivity in GAD patients. In patients, amygdala activation in response to neutral faces decreased following both interventions. BOLD response in ventrolateral prefrontal regions (VLPFC) showed greater increase in MBSR than SME participants. Functional connectivity between amygdala and PFC regions increased significantly pre- to post-intervention within the MBSR, but not SME group. Both, change in VLPFC activation and amygdala-prefrontal connectivity were correlated with change in Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) scores, suggesting clinical relevance of these changes. Amygdala-prefrontal connectivity turned from negative coupling (typically seen in down-regulation of emotions), to positive coupling; potentially suggesting a unique mechanism of mindfulness. Findings suggest that in GAD, mindfulness training leads to changes in fronto-limbic areas crucial for the regulation of emotion; these changes correspond with reported symptom improvements.
Anxiety is the cognitive state related to the inability to control emotional responses to perceived threats. Anxiety is inversely related to brain activity associated with the cognitive regulation of emotions. Mindfulness meditation has been found to regulate anxiety. However, the brain mechanisms involved in meditation-related anxiety relief are largely unknown. We employed pulsed arterial spin labeling MRI to compare the effects of distraction in the form of attending to the breath (ATB; before meditation training) to mindfulness meditation (after meditation training) on state anxiety across the same subjects. Fifteen healthy subjects, with no prior meditation experience, participated in 4 d of mindfulness meditation training. ATB did not reduce state anxiety, but state anxiety was significantly reduced in every session that subjects meditated. Meditation-related anxiety relief was associated with activation of the anterior cingulate cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex and anterior insula. Meditation-related activation in these regions exhibited a strong relationship to anxiety relief when compared to ATB. During meditation, those who exhibited greater default-related activity (i.e. posterior cingulate cortex) reported greater anxiety, possibly reflecting an inability to control self-referential thoughts. These findings provide evidence that mindfulness meditation attenuates anxiety through mechanisms involved in the regulation of self-referential thought processes.
Importance
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for social anxiety disorder (SAD) is thought to enhance cognitive reappraisal in patients with SAD. Such improvements should be evident in cognitive reappraisal–related prefrontal cortex responses.Objective
To determine whether CBT for SAD modifies cognitive reappraisal–related prefrontal cortex neural signal magnitude and timing when implementing cognitive reappraisal with negative self-beliefs.Design
Randomized clinical trial of CBT for SAD vs wait-list control group during a study that enrolled patients from 2007 to 2010.Setting
University psychology department.Participants
Seventy-five patients with generalized SAD randomly assigned to CBT or wait list.Intervention
Sixteen sessions of individual CBT for SAD.Main Outcome Measures
Negative emotion ratings and functional magnetic resonance imaging blood oxygen–level dependent signal when reacting to and cognitively reappraising negative self-beliefs embedded in autobiographical social anxiety situations.Results
During reactivity trials, compared with wait list, CBT produced (1) greater reduction in negative emotion ratings and (2) greater blood oxygen–level dependent signal magnitude in the medial prefrontal cortex. During cognitive reappraisal trials, compared with wait list, CBT produced (3) greater reduction in negative emotion ratings, (4) greater blood oxygen level–dependent signal magnitude in the dorsolateral and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, (5) earlier temporal onset of dorsomedial prefrontal cortex activity, and (6) greater dorsomedial prefrontal cortex–amygdala inverse functional connectivity.Conclusions and Relevance
Modulation of cognitive reappraisal–related brain responses, timing, and functional connectivity may be important brain changes that contribute to the effectiveness of CBT for social anxiety. This study demonstrates that clinically applied neuroscience investigations can elucidate neurobiological mechanisms of change in psychiatric conditions.Trial Registration
clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00380731.
Mindfulness - an attentive, non-judgmental focus on present experiences - is increasingly incorporated in psychotherapeutic treatments as a skill fostering emotion regulation. Neurobiological mechanisms of actively induced emotion regulation are associated with prefrontally mediated down-regulation of, for instance, the amygdala. We were interested in neurobiological correlates of a short mindfulness instruction during emotional arousal. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated effects of a short mindfulness intervention during the cued expectation and perception of negative and potentially negative pictures (50% probability) in 24 healthy individuals compared to 22 controls.The mindfulness intervention was associated with increased activations in prefrontal regions during the expectation of negative and potentially negative pictures compared to controls. During the perception of negative stimuli, reduced activation was identified in regions involved in emotion processing (amygdala, parahippocampal gyrus). Prefrontal and right insular activations when expecting negative pictures correlated negatively with trait mindfulness, suggesting that more mindful individuals required less regulatory resources to attenuate emotional arousal.Our findings suggest emotion regulatory effects of a short mindfulness intervention on a neurobiological level.
The brain network governing meditation has been studied using a variety of meditation practices and techniques practices eliciting different cognitive processes (e.g., silence, attention to own body, sense of joy, mantras, etc.). It is very possible that different practices of meditation are subserved by largely, if not entirely, disparate brain networks. This assumption was tested by conducting an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis of meditation neuroimaging studies, which assessed 150 activation foci from 24 experiments. Different ALE meta-analyses were carried out. One involved the subsets of studies involving meditation induced through exercising focused attention (FA). The network included clusters bilaterally in the medial gyrus, the left superior parietal lobe, the left insula and the right supramarginal gyrus (SMG). A second analysis addressed the studies involving meditation states induced by chanting or by repetition of words or phrases, known as “mantra.” This type of practice elicited a cluster of activity in the right SMG, the SMA bilaterally and the left postcentral gyrus. Furthermore, the last analyses addressed the effect of meditation experience (i.e., short- vs. long-term meditators). We found that frontal activation was present for short-term, as compared with long-term experience meditators, confirming that experts are better enabled to sustain attentional focus, rather recruiting the right SMG and concentrating on aspects involving disembodiment.
Interventions based on training in mindfulness skills are becoming increasingly popular. Mindfulness involves intentionally bringing one's attention to the internal and external experiences occurring in the present moment, and is often taught through a variety of meditation exercises. This review summarizes conceptual approaches to mind-fulness and empirical research on the utility of mindfulness-based interventions. Meta-analytic techniques were incorporated to facilitate quantification of findings and comparison across studies. Although the current empirical literature includes many methodological flaws, findings suggest that mindfulness-based interventions may be helpful in the treatment of several disorders. Methodologically sound investigations are recommended in order to clarify the utility of these interventions.
There has been substantial interest in mindfulness as an approach to reduce cognitive vulnerability to stress and emotional distress in recent years. However, thus far mindfulness has not been defined operationally. This paper describes the results of recent meetings held to establish a consensus on mindfulness and to develop conjointly a testable operational definition. We propose a two-component model of mindfulness and specify each component in terms of specific behaviors, experiential manifestations, and implicated psychological processes. We then address issues regarding temporal stability and situational specificity and speculate on the conceptual and operational distinctiveness of mindfulness. We conclude this paper by discussing implications for instrument development and briefly describing our own approach to measurement.
Bishop et al. (this issue) propose an operational definition of mindfulness developed by a recent consensus panel. The group provides a solid empirical framework from which to develop measures of mindfulness, and they propose an exciting research agenda. We describe measurement development work from our research group that provides initial support for the proposed consensus definition and that examines mindfulness in relation to emotion regulation variables. We extend the discussion by describing how mindfulness can enhance the stabilizing and destabilizing aspects of therapeutic change, and we illustrate this in the context of our treatment program for depression.
To evaluate the impact of an intensive period of mindfulness meditation training on cognitive and affective function, a non-clinical
group of 20 novice meditators were tested before and after participation in a 10-day intensive mindfulness meditation retreat.
They were evaluated with self-report scales measuring mindfulness, rumination and affect, as well as performance tasks assessing
working memory, sustained attention, and attention switching. Results indicated that those completing the mindfulness training
demonstrated significant improvements in self-reported mindfulness, depressive symptoms, rumination, and performance measures
of working memory and sustained attention, relative to a comparison group who did not undergo any meditation training. This
study suggests future directions for the elucidation of the critical processes that underlie the therapeutic benefits of mindfulness-based
interventions.
One component of mindfulness training (MT) is the development of interoceptive attention (IA) to visceral bodily sensations, facilitated through daily practices such as breath monitoring. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined experience-dependent functional plasticity in accessing interoceptive representations by comparing graduates of a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course to a waitlisted control group. IA to respiratory sensations was contrasted against two visual tasks, controlling for attentional requirements non-specific to IA such as maintaining sensation and suppressing distraction. In anatomically partitioned analyses of insula activity, MT predicted greater IA-related activity in anterior dysgranular insula regions, consistent with greater integration of interoceptive sensation with external context. MT also predicted decreased recruitment of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) during IA, and altered functional connectivity between the DMPFC and the posterior insula, putative primary interoceptive cortex. Furthermore, meditation practice compliance predicted greater posterior insula and reduced visual pathway recruitment during IA. These findings suggest that interoceptive training modulates task-specific cortical recruitment, analogous to training-related plasticity observed in the external senses. Further, DMPFC modulation of IA networks may be an important mechanism by which MT alters information processing in the brain, increasing the contribution of interoception to perceptual experience.
Objective:
To examine whether changes in cognitive reappraisal self-efficacy (CR-SE) mediate the effects of individually administered cognitive-behavioral therapy (I-CBT) for social anxiety disorder (SAD) on severity of social anxiety symptoms.
Method:
A randomized controlled trial in which 75 adult patients (21-55 years of age; 53% male; 57% Caucasian) with a principal diagnosis of generalized SAD were randomly assigned to 16 sessions of I-CBT (n = 38) or a wait-list control (WL) group (n = 37). All patients completed self-report inventories measuring CR-SE and social anxiety symptoms at baseline and post-I-CBT/post-WL, and I-CBT completers were also assessed at 1-year posttreatment.
Results:
Compared with WL, I-CBT resulted in greater increases in CR-SE and greater decreases in social anxiety. Increases in CR-SE during I-CBT mediated the effect of I-CBT on social anxiety. Gains achieved by patients receiving I-CBT were maintained 1-year posttreatment, and I-CBT-related increases in CR-SE were also associated with reduction in social anxiety at the 1-year follow-up.
Conclusions:
Increasing CR-SE may be an important mechanism by which I-CBT for SAD produces both immediate and long-term reductions in social anxiety.
Mindfulness meditation—the practice of attending to present moment experience and allowing emotions and thoughts to pass without
judgment—has shown to be beneficial in clinical populations across diverse outcomes. However, the basic neural mechanisms
by which mindfulness operates and relates to everyday outcomes in novices remain unexplored. Focused attention is a common
mindfulness induction where practitioners focus on specific physical sensations, typically the breath. The present study explores
the neural mechanisms of this common mindfulness induction among novice practitioners. Healthy novice participants completed
a brief task with both mindful attention [focused breathing (FB)] and control (unfocused attention) conditions during functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Relative to the control condition, FB recruited an attention network including parietal
and prefrontal structures and trait-level mindfulness during this comparison also correlated with parietal activation. Results
suggest that the neural mechanisms of a brief mindfulness induction are related to attention processes in novices and that
trait mindfulness positively moderates this activation.
This study sought to examine the effect of meditation experience on brain networks underlying cognitive actions employed during contemplative practice. In a previous study, we proposed a basic model of naturalistic cognitive fluctuations that occur during the practice of focused attention meditation. This model specifies four intervals in a cognitive cycle: mind wandering (MW), awareness of MW, shifting of attention, and sustained attention. Using subjective input from experienced practitioners during meditation, we identified activity in salience network regions during awareness of MW and executive network regions during shifting and sustained attention. Brain regions associated with the default mode were active during MW. In the present study, we reasoned that repeated activation of attentional brain networks over years of practice may induce lasting functional connectivity changes within relevant circuits. To investigate this possibility, we created seeds representing the networks that were active during the four phases of the earlier study, and examined functional connectivity during the resting state in the same participants. Connectivity maps were then contrasted between participants with high vs. low meditation experience. Participants with more meditation experience exhibited increased connectivity within attentional networks, as well as between attentional regions and medial frontal regions. These neural relationships may be involved in the development of cognitive skills, such as maintaining attention and disengaging from distraction, that are often reported with meditation practice. Furthermore, because altered connectivity of brain regions in experienced meditators was observed in a non-meditative (resting) state, this may represent a transference of cognitive abilities “off the cushion” into daily life.
The subjective experience of one's environment is constructed by interactions among sensory, cognitive, and affective processes. For centuries, meditation has been thought to influence such processes by enabling a nonevaluative representation of sensory events. To better understand how meditation influences the sensory experience, we used arterial spin labeling functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess the neural mechanisms by which mindfulness meditation influences pain in healthy human participants. After 4 d of mindfulness meditation training, meditating in the presence of noxious stimulation significantly reduced pain unpleasantness by 57% and pain intensity ratings by 40% when compared to rest. A two-factor repeated-measures ANOVA was used to identify interactions between meditation and pain-related brain activation. Meditation reduced pain-related activation of the contralateral primary somatosensory cortex. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify brain regions associated with individual differences in the magnitude of meditation-related pain reductions. Meditation-induced reductions in pain intensity ratings were associated with increased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula, areas involved in the cognitive regulation of nociceptive processing. Reductions in pain unpleasantness ratings were associated with orbitofrontal cortex activation, an area implicated in reframing the contextual evaluation of sensory events. Moreover, reductions in pain unpleasantness also were associated with thalamic deactivation, which may reflect a limbic gating mechanism involved in modifying interactions between afferent input and executive-order brain areas. Together, these data indicate that meditation engages multiple brain mechanisms that alter the construction of the subjectively available pain experience from afferent information.
Meditation refers to a family of complex emotional and attentional regulatory practices, which can be classified into two main styles - focused attention (FA) and open monitoring (OM) - involving different attentional, cognitive monitoring and awareness processes. In a functional magnetic resonance study we originally characterized and contrasted FA and OM meditation forms within the same experiment, by an integrated FA-OM design. Theravada Buddhist monks, expert in both FA and OM meditation forms, and lay novices with 10 days of meditation practice, participated in the experiment. Our evidence suggests that expert meditators control cognitive engagement in conscious processing of sensory-related, thought and emotion contents, by massive self-regulation of fronto-parietal and insular areas in the left hemisphere, in a meditation state-dependent fashion. We also found that anterior cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices play antagonist roles in the executive control of the attention setting in meditation tasks. Our findings resolve the controversy between the hypothesis that meditative states are associated to transient hypofrontality or deactivation of executive brain areas, and evidence about the activation of executive brain areas in meditation. Finally, our study suggests that a functional reorganization of brain activity patterns for focused attention and cognitive monitoring takes place with mental practice, and that meditation-related neuroplasticity is crucially associated to a functional reorganization of activity patterns in prefrontal cortex and in the insula.
The regulation of negative emotion through reappraisal has been shown to induce increased prefrontal activity and decreased amygdala activity. Individual differences in dispositional mindfulness reflect differences in typical recognition, detachment and regulation of current experience, thought to also operate as top-down control mechanism. We sought to investigate whether such individual differences would be associated with brain activity elicited during reappraisal of negative emotion. Eighteen healthy participants completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging task that involved attending to or reappraising negative stimuli, and provided emotion experience ratings after each trial. Dispositional mindfulness was assessed with a self-report questionnaire. Reappraisal induced activity in a brain network involving predominantly dorsal portions of the prefrontal cortex, replicating previous studies. A voxelwise regression analysis showed that individual differences in the tendency to be mindful predicted activity in neural regions underlying reappraisal, with dorsomedial prefrontal cortex activation increasing with more mindfulness traits. Notably, this prefrontal activation was inversely correlated with the amygdala response to negative scenes, further supporting its role in down-regulating emotion-generation regions. These findings suggest that individual differences in dispositional mindfulness, which reflect the tendency to recognize and regulate current states, may modulate activity in neural systems involved in the effective cognitive control of negative emotion.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is an established program shown to reduce symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression. MBSR is believed to alter emotional responding by modifying cognitive-affective processes. Given that social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by emotional and attentional biases as well as distorted negative self-beliefs, we examined MBSR-related changes in the brain-behavior indices of emotional reactivity and regulation of negative self-beliefs in patients with SAD. Sixteen patients underwent functional MRI while reacting to negative self-beliefs and while regulating negative emotions using 2 types of attention deployment emotion regulation-breath-focused attention and distraction-focused attention. Post-MBSR, 14 patients completed neuroimaging assessments. Compared with baseline, MBSR completers showed improvement in anxiety and depression symptoms and self-esteem. During the breath-focused attention task (but not the distraction-focused attention task), they also showed (a) decreased negative emotion experience, (b) reduced amygdala activity, and (c) increased activity in brain regions implicated in attentional deployment. MBSR training in patients with SAD may reduce emotional reactivity while enhancing emotion regulation. These changes might facilitate reduction in SAD-related avoidance behaviors, clinical symptoms, and automatic emotional reactivity to negative self-beliefs in adults with SAD.
To better understand the relationship between mindfulness and depression, we studied normal young adults (n = 27) who completed measures of dispositional mindfulness and depressive symptomatology, which were then correlated with (a) rest: resting neural activity during passive viewing of a fixation cross, relative to a simple goal-directed task (shape-matching); and (b) reactivity: neural reactivity during viewing of negative emotional faces, relative to the same shape-matching task. Dispositional mindfulness was negatively correlated with resting activity in self-referential processing areas, whereas depressive symptomatology was positively correlated with resting activity in similar areas. In addition, dispositional mindfulness was negatively correlated with resting activity in the amygdala, bilaterally, whereas depressive symptomatology was positively correlated with activity in the right amygdala. Similarly, when viewing emotional faces, amygdala reactivity was positively correlated with depressive symptomatology and negatively correlated with dispositional mindfulness, an effect that was largely attributable to differences in resting activity. These findings indicate that mindfulness is associated with intrinsic neural activity and that changes in resting amygdala activity could be a potential mechanism by which mindfulness-based depression treatments elicit therapeutic improvement.
Anhedonia, the loss of pleasure or interest in previously rewarding stimuli, is a core feature of major depression. While theorists have argued that anhedonia reflects a reduced capacity to experience pleasure, evidence is mixed as to whether anhedonia is caused by a reduction in hedonic capacity. An alternative explanation is that anhedonia is due to the inability to sustain positive affect across time. Using positive images, we used an emotion regulation task to test whether individuals with depression are unable to sustain activation in neural circuits underlying positive affect and reward. While up-regulating positive affect, depressed individuals failed to sustain nucleus accumbens activity over time compared with controls. This decreased capacity was related to individual differences in self-reported positive affect. Connectivity analyses further implicated the fronto-striatal network in anhedonia. These findings support the hypothesis that anhedonia in depressed patients reflects the inability to sustain engagement of structures involved in positive affect and reward.
It has long been theorised that there are two temporally distinct forms of self-reference: extended self-reference linking experiences across time, and momentary self-reference centred on the present. To characterise these two aspects of awareness, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine monitoring of enduring traits ('narrative' focus, NF) or momentary experience ('experiential' focus, EF) in both novice participants and those having attended an 8 week course in mindfulness meditation, a program that trains individuals to develop focused attention on the present. In novices, EF yielded focal reductions in self-referential cortical midline regions (medial prefrontal cortex, mPFC) associated with NF. In trained participants, EF resulted in more marked and pervasive reductions in the mPFC, and increased engagement of a right lateralised network, comprising the lateral PFC and viscerosomatic areas such as the insula, secondary somatosensory cortex and inferior parietal lobule. Functional connectivity analyses further demonstrated a strong coupling between the right insula and the mPFC in novices that was uncoupled in the mindfulness group. These results suggest a fundamental neural dissociation between two distinct forms of self-awareness that are habitually integrated but can be dissociated through attentional training: the self across time and in the present moment.
Background:
Although mindfulness meditation interventions have recently shown benefits for reducing stress in various populations, little is known about their relative efficacy compared with relaxation interventions.
Purpose:
This randomized controlled trial examines the effects of a 1-month mindfulness meditation versus somatic relaxation training as compared to a control group in 83 students (M age = 25; 16 men and 67 women) reporting distress.
Method:
Psychological distress, positive states of mind, distractive and ruminative thoughts and behaviors, and spiritual experience were measured, while controlling for social desirability.
Results:
Hierarchical linear modeling reveals that both meditation and relaxation groups experienced significant decreases in distress as well as increases in positive mood states over time, compared with the control group (p < .05 in all cases). There were no significant differences between meditation and relaxation on distress and positive mood states over time. Effect sizes for distress were large for both meditation and relaxation (Cohen's d = 1.36 and .91, respectively), whereas the meditation group showed a larger effect size for positive states of mind than relaxation (Cohen's d =.71 and .25, respectively). The meditation group also demonstrated significant pre-post decreases in both distractive and ruminative thoughts/behaviors compared with the control group (p < .04 in all cases; Cohen's d = .57 for rumination and .25 for distraction for the meditation group), with mediation models suggesting that mindfulness meditation's effects on reducing distress were partially mediated by reducing rumination. No significant effects were found for spiritual experience.
Conclusions:
The data suggest that compared with a no-treatment control, brief training in mindfulness meditation or somatic relaxation reduces distress and improves positive mood states. However, mindfulness meditation may be specific in its ability to reduce distractive and ruminative thoughts and behaviors, and this ability may provide a unique mechanism by which mindfulness meditation reduces distress.
Although depressed mood is a normal occurrence in response to adversity in all individuals, what distinguishes those who are vulnerable to major depressive disorder (MDD) is their inability to effectively regulate negative mood when it arises. Investigating the neural underpinnings of adaptive emotion regulation and the extent to which such processes are compromised in MDD may be helpful in understanding the pathophysiology of depression. We report results from a functional magnetic resonance imaging study demonstrating left-lateralized activation in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) when downregulating negative affect in nondepressed individuals, whereas depressed individuals showed bilateral PFC activation. Furthermore, during an effortful affective reappraisal task, nondepressed individuals showed an inverse relationship between activation in left ventrolateral PFC and the amygdala that is mediated by the ventromedial PFC (VMPFC). No such relationship was found for depressed individuals, who instead show a positive association between VMPFC and amygdala. Pupil dilation data suggest that those depressed patients who expend more effort to reappraise negative stimuli are characterized by accentuated activation in the amygdala, insula, and thalamus, whereas nondepressed individuals exhibit the opposite pattern. These findings indicate that a key feature underlying the pathophysiology of major depression is the counterproductive engagement of right prefrontal cortex and the lack of engagement of left lateral-ventromedial prefrontal circuitry important for the downregulation of amygdala responses to negative stimuli.
The ability to regulate emotions is an important part of adaptive functioning in society. Advances in cognitive and affective neuroscience and biological psychiatry have facilitated examination of neural systems that may be important for emotion regulation. In this critical review we first develop a neural model of emotion regulation that includes neural systems implicated in different voluntary and automatic emotion regulatory subprocesses. We then use this model as a theoretical framework to examine functional neural abnormalities in these neural systems that may predispose to the development of a major psychiatric disorder characterized by severe emotion dysregulation, bipolar disorder.
Zusammenfassung. Theoretischer Hintergrund: Achtsamkeit ist eine bestimmte Form der Aufmerksamkeitslenkung, die durch drei Merkmale gekennzeichnet ist: (1) absichtsvoll (2), im gegenwartigen Moment und (3) nicht wertend. Therapieansatze, in denen die Forderung von Achtsamkeit eine zentrale Rolle einnimmt, werden in letzter Zeit zunehmend eingesetzt. Fragestellung: Wie gut sind die Gutekriterien der deutschen Ubersetzung der „Mindful Attention Awareness Scale” (MAAS)? Methode: Die 15 Items der MAAS wurden ubersetzt. An einer Stichprobe von 469 studentischen Versuchspersonen wurden die dimensionale Struktur, Reliabilitat und Validitat der Skala uberpruft. Ergebnisse: In Ubereinstimmung mit den Ergebnissen zur amerikanischen Originalfassung zeigte die deutschsprachige Version der MAAS eine eindimensionale Struktur, eine interne Konsistenz von α = .83 und Zusammenhange mit psychopathologischer Belastung und subjektivem Wohlbefinden. Schlussfolgerungen: Mit der deutschen Ubersetzung der MAAS liegt ein Fragebog...
Anxiety disorders are characterized by deficient emotion regulation prior to and in anxiety-evoking situations. Patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) have increased brain activation also during the anticipation and perception of non-specific emotional stimuli pointing to biased general emotion processing. In the current study we addressed the neural correlates of emotion regulation by cognitive control during the anticipation and perception of non-specific emotional stimuli in patients with SAD. Thirty-two patients with SAD underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during the announced anticipation and perception of emotional stimuli. Half of them were trained and instructed to apply reality-checking as a control strategy, the others anticipated and perceived the stimuli. Reality checking significantly (p<0.01) reduced activity in insular, amygdalar and medial thalamic areas during the anticipation and perception of negative emotional stimuli. The medial prefrontal cortex was comparably active in both groups (p>0.50). The results suggest that cognitive control in patients with SAD influences emotion processing structures, supporting the usefulness of emotion regulation training in the psychotherapy of SAD. In contrast to studies in healthy subjects, cognitive control was not associated with increased activation of prefrontal regions in SAD. This points to possibly disturbed general emotion regulating circuits in SAD.
Two hundred twenty-five chronic pain patients were studied following training in mindfulness meditation. Large and significant overall improvements were recorded post-intervention in physical and psychological status. These gains were maintained at follow-up in the majority of subjects. Follow-up times ranged from 2.5-48 months. Status on the McGill Melzack Pain Rating Index (PRI), however, tended to revert to preintervention levels following the intervention. Most subjects reported a high degree of adherence with the meditation techniques, maintenance of improved status over time, and a high degree of importance attributed to the training program. We conclude that such training can have long-term benefit for chronic pain patients.
Psychological research increasingly indicates that emotional processes interact with other aspects of cognition. Studies have demonstrated both the ability of emotional stimuli to influence a broad range of cognitive operations, and the ability of humans to use top-down cognitive control mechanisms to regulate emotional responses. Portions of the prefrontal cortex appear to play a significant role in these interactions. However, the manner in which these interactions are implemented remains only partially elucidated. In the present review we describe the anatomical connections between ventral and dorsal prefrontal areas as well as their connections with limbic regions. Only a subset of prefrontal areas are likely to directly influence amygdalar processing, and as such models of prefrontal control of emotions and models of emotional regulation should be constrained to plausible pathways of influence. We also focus on how the specific pattern of feedforward and feedback connections between these regions