interoception

Mindfulness Training Alters the Brain to Improve Internally Oriented Attention

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Mindfulness Training Alters the Brain to Improve Internally Oriented Attention

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Regular practice of mindfulness can help you grow a wiser, more connected, and stress-proof brain.” – Melanie Greenberg

 

There has accumulated a large amount of research demonstrating that meditation practice has significant benefits for psychological, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. One way that meditation practices may produce these benefits is by altering the brain. Meditation practice appears to mold and change the brain structures and connectivity, producing psychological, physical, and spiritual benefits, especially mindfulness.

 

Meditation practice results in a shift in mental processing. It produces a reduction of mind wandering and self-referential thinking and an increase in attention and higher-level thinking. The neural system that underlie mind wandering is termed the Default Mode Network (DMN) and consists in a set of brain structures including medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate, lateral temporal cortex and the hippocampus. The neural system that underlies executive functions such as attention and higher-level thinking is termed the Central Executive Network (CEN) and includes the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex, and cingulate cortex. The salience network has been shown to direct attention to significant aspects of the environment. Hence the shift in thought process may well be associated with changes in the relationship of these systems.

 

The evidence of the effects of mindfulness practices on the Default Mode Network (DMN) and the Salience Network has been accumulating. So, it makes sense to summarize what has been learned. In today’s Research News article “Meta-analytic evidence that mindfulness training alters resting state default mode network connectivity.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9293892/ ) Rahrig and colleagues review, summarize, and perform a meta-analysis of the published research on the effects of mindfulness training on brain systems.

 

They identified 12 published research studies. They report that the research studies found that mindfulness training produced increased functional connectivity between the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex a component of the salience network and the posterior cingulate cortex a component of the default mode network. This suggests that mindfulness training increases the attention to significant aspects of internal processes. It can be hypothesized that this results in an internal attention to the internal mental processes of the mind.

 

“How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience, and therefore, the quality of our lives.” – Sam Harris

 

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

Rahrig H, Vago DR, Passarelli MA, Auten A, Lynn NA, Brown KW. Meta-analytic evidence that mindfulness training alters resting state default mode network connectivity. Sci Rep. 2022 Jul 18;12(1):12260. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-15195-6. PMID: 35851275; PMCID: PMC9293892.

 

Abstract

This meta-analysis sought to expand upon neurobiological models of mindfulness through investigation of inherent brain network connectivity outcomes, indexed via resting state functional connectivity (rsFC). We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of rsFC as an outcome of mindfulness training (MT) relative to control, with the hypothesis that MT would increase cross-network connectivity between nodes of the Default Mode Network (DMN), Salience Network (SN), and Frontoparietal Control Network (FPCN) as a mechanism of internally-oriented attentional control. Texts were identified from the databases: MEDLINE/PubMed, ERIC, PSYCINFO, ProQuest, Scopus, and Web of Sciences; and were screened for inclusion based on experimental/quasi-experimental trial design and use of mindfulness-based training interventions. RsFC effects were extracted from twelve studies (mindfulness n = 226; control n = 204). Voxel-based meta-analysis revealed significantly greater rsFC (MT > control) between the left middle cingulate (Hedge’s g = .234, p = 0.0288, I2 = 15.87), located within the SN, and the posterior cingulate cortex, a focal hub of the DMN. Egger’s test for publication bias was nonsignificant, bias = 2.17, p = 0.162. In support of our hypothesis, results suggest that MT targets internetwork (SN-DMN) connectivity implicated in the flexible control of internally-oriented attention.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9293892/

 

Mindfulness May Produce Its Benefits by Improving Self-Related Processes

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Mindfulness May Produce Its Benefits by Improving Self-Related Processes

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Mindful people might be happier because they have a better idea of who they are.” – Kira M. Newman

 

“Meditation leads to concentration, concentration leads to understanding, and understanding leads to happiness” – This wonderful quote from the modern-day sage Thich Nhat Hahn is a beautiful pithy description of the benefits of mindfulness practice. Mindfulness allows us to view our experience and not put labels on it, not make assumptions about it, not relate it to past experiences, and not project it into the future. Rather mindfulness lets us experience everything around and within us exactly as it is arising and falling away from moment to moment including the self and psychological processes related to the self.

 

mindfulness training has been shown to increase psychological well-being and happiness and help to relieve mental illness. A number of mechanisms of how mindfulness produces these benefits have been proposed. Many of the proposed mechanisms involve self-relate processes which require “one to evaluate or judge some feature in relation to one’s perceptual image or mental concept of oneself,” such as self-efficacy, decentering, and self-regulation. There has accumulated a large volume of research. So, it is important to examine the findings and what has been learned.

 

In today’s Research News article “From Self-Esteem to Selflessness: An Evidence (Gap) Map of Self-Related Processes as Mechanisms of Mindfulness-Based Interventions.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8645694/ ) Britton and colleagues review and summarize the published research on the role of self-related processes in the beneficial effects of mindfulness-based interventions. They examine 3 categories of self-related processes, self-regulation skills, and embodied self-regulation processes.

 

They report that the published research found that alterations self-related processes in part mediate the beneficial effects of mindfulness-based interventions. These include reductions in negative self-evaluations including rumination and dysfunctional attitudes and increases in positive self-evaluations including self-compassion and self-esteem. Self-regulation skills also appear in part to mediate the beneficial effects of mindfulness-based interventions. These include increases in self-efficacy and decentering. Finally, embodied self-regulation processes appear in co-occur with the beneficial effects of mindfulness-based interventions but have not been conclusively established as mediators. These include increases in interoception, selflessness, and self-transcendence.

 

These findings suggest that mindfulness-based interventions produce beneficial effects by at least in part altering how the individual views and processes ideas of the self. Mindfulness training involves focusing on the present moment and this focus may reduce the influence of the past and projections of the future on the individual’s psychological well-being. Most negative views of the self are past and future based. So, mindfulness training may improve the ideas of self by focusing on the present and seeing the self as processes occurring in the now, a more grounded and realistic view of the self. Obviously more research is needed on this promising area of potential mindfulness mediators.

 

So, mindfulness may produce its benefits by improving self-related processes.

 

“[Mindfulness] encourages people to simply observe the contents of their mind. In this way, I think that mindfulness allows for greater self-insight.” – Rimma Tepper

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are available on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Britton, W. B., Desbordes, G., Acabchuk, R., Peters, S., Lindahl, J. R., Canby, N. K., Vago, D. R., Dumais, T., Lipsky, J., Kimmel, H., Sager, L., Rahrig, H., Cheaito, A., Acero, P., Scharf, J., Lazar, S. W., Schuman-Olivier, Z., Ferrer, R., & Moitra, E. (2021). From Self-Esteem to Selflessness: An Evidence (Gap) Map of Self-Related Processes as Mechanisms of Mindfulness-Based Interventions. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 730972. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.730972

 

Abstract

Self-related processes (SRPs) have been theorized as key mechanisms of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs), but the evidence supporting these theories is currently unclear. This evidence map introduces a comprehensive framework for different types of SRPs, and how they are theorized to function as mechanisms of MBIs (target identification). The evidence map then assesses SRP target engagement by mindfulness training and the relationship between target engagement and outcomes (target validation). Discussion of the measurement of SRPs is also included. The most common SRPs measured and engaged by standard MBIs represented valenced evaluations of self-concept, including rumination, self-compassion, self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Rumination showed the strongest evidence as a mechanism for depression, with other physical and mental health outcomes also supported. Self-compassion showed consistent target engagement but was inconsistently related to improved outcomes. Decentering and interoception are emerging potential mechanisms, but their construct validity and different subcomponents are still in development. While some embodied self-specifying processes are being measured in cross-sectional and meditation induction studies, very few have been assessed in MBIs. The SRPs with the strongest mechanistic support represent positive and negative evaluations of self-concept. In sum, few SRPs have been measured in MBIs, and additional research using well-validated measures is needed to clarify their role as mechanisms.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8645694/

 

Improve Well-Being of Healthy Individuals with Mindfulness

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Improve Well-Being of Healthy Individuals with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“engaging in mindfulness meditation cultivates our ability to both focus and broaden our attention, which is a practical way to elicit psychological well-being.” – Jennifer Wolkin

 

The primary focus of the majority of research on mindfulness has been on its ability to treat mental illness and negative emotional states such as anxiety, depression, and perceived stress. As such, it has been found to be effective for a large array of medical and psychiatric conditions, either stand-alone or in combination with more traditional therapies. But mindfulness training has also been shown to improve health and well-being in healthy individuals.

 

The most commonly used mindfulness technique for the treatment of depression is Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT).  MBCT involves mindfulness training, containing sitting and walking meditation and body scan, and cognitive therapy to alter how the patient relates to the thought processes that often underlie and exacerbate psychological symptoms. MBCT was developed to treat mental illness. So, it is not known if it can improve the well-being of healthy individuals.

 

In today’s Research News article “Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Improving Subjective and Eudaimonic Well-Being in Healthy Individuals: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.700916/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1714167_a0P58000000G0YfEAK_Psycho_20210831_arts_A ) Kosugi and colleagues recruited healthy adults and randomly assigned them to either a wait-list control condition or to receive 8 weekly, 2-hour group sessions of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). They were measured before, during, and after training and 8 weeks later for satisfaction with life, flourishing, positive and negative experiences, self-esteem, mindfulness, self-compassion, resilience, anxiety, depression, perceived stress, presenteeism, interoceptive awareness, and quality of life.

 

They found that in comparison to baseline and the wait-list control group, the group that received Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) had significant increases in satisfaction with life, interoceptive awareness, mindfulness, self-compassion, resilience, and work productivity that were maintained 8 weeks after the end of training. Hence, MBCT produced significant improvements in the psychological states of healthy adults. So, MBCT is not only effective in improving the mental health of individuals with mental problems but also can increase the positive psychological states in healthy individuals.

 

This study had a passive comparison (control) condition. This leaves open the possibility that the results were affected by participant expectancies (placebo), experimenter bias, or attentional (Hawthorne) effects. Future research should compare Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) treatment to an active control condition, e.g. exercise to eliminate the possible confounding variables.

 

So, improve well-being of healthy individuals with mindfulness.

 

“The practice of mindfulness is an effective means of enhancing and maintaining optimal mental health and overall well-being, and can be implemented in every aspect of daily living.” – Rezvan Ameli

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Kosugi T, Ninomiya A, Nagaoka M, Hashimoto Z, Sawada K, Park S, Fujisawa D, Mimura M and Sado M (2021) Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Improving Subjective and Eudaimonic Well-Being in Healthy Individuals: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Front. Psychol. 12:700916. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.700916

 

Objectives: Better subjective and eudaimonic well-being fosters better health conditions. Several studies have confirmed that mindfulness-based interventions are effective for improving well-being; however, the samples examined in these studies have been limited to specific populations, and the studies only measured certain aspects of well-being rather than the entire construct. Additionally, few studies have examined the effect of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on well-being. The present study examines the feasibility of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and its effectiveness for improving subjective and eudaimonic well-being among community residents.

Methods: The study design featured an 8-week randomized, waiting-list controlled, parallel-group study. 8 weekly mindfulness classes, followed by 2 monthly classes, were provided for healthy individuals aged 20–65 years who had a Satisfaction with Life Scale score of ≤ 24 indicating average to low cognitive aspect of subjective well-being. This trial was registered with the University Hospital Medical Information Network Clinical Trials Registry (ID: UMIN000031885, URL: https://upload.umin.ac.jp/cgi-open-bin/ctr_e/ctr_view.cgi?recptno=R000036376).

Results: The results showed that cognitive aspect of subjective well-being and mindfulness skills were significantly improved at 8 weeks, and this effect was enhanced up to the end of the follow-up period. Positive affective aspect of subjective and eudaimonic well-being were significantly improved at 16 weeks.

Conclusions: Eight weeks of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy with a 2-month follow-up period improves cognitive and affective aspects of subjective and eudaimonic well-being in healthy individuals. The order of improvement was cognitive, positive affective, and eudaimonic well-being. To verify these findings, multi-center randomized controlled trials with active control groups and longer follow-up periods are warranted.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.700916/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1714167_a0P58000000G0YfEAK_Psycho_20210831_arts_A

 

Improve Self-Awareness and Self-Regulation with Yoga Practice

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Improve Self-Awareness and Self-Regulation with Yoga Practice

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Mindfulness is described through systematic mental training that develops meta-awareness (self-awareness), an ability to effectively modulate one’s behavior (self-regulation), and a positive relationship between self and other that transcends self-focused needs and increases prosocial characteristics (self-transcendence).” – David Vago

 

Mindfulness promotes meta-awareness self-awareness, an ability to effectively modulate one’s behavior, self-regulation, and a positive relationship between self and other that transcends self-focused needs and increases prosocial characteristics, self-transcendence. This is sometimes abbreviated as S-Art. It is not known, however, if yoga practice, which is both a mindfulness practice and an exercise, also promotes S-Art.

 

In today’s Research News article “Applying the S-ART Framework to Yoga: Exploring the Self-Regulatory Action of Yoga Practice in Two Culturally Diverse Samples.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.585300/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1692584_a0P58000000G0YfEAK_Psycho_20210729_arts_A ) Tolbaños-Roche and colleagues recruited yoga practitioners and non-practitioners from India and also from Spain who were participating in a short-term yoga certificate program lasting 1 to 3 months. They were measured for interoceptive awareness, attention, emotional awareness, decentering, emotion regulation, and self-transcendence.

 

They found in comparison to non-practitioners that the yoga practitioners were significantly higher in decentering, self-awareness, and self-regulation. In addition, the longer the practitioners have practiced yoga the higher the levels of self-awareness (interoceptive awareness), and self-regulation. They found cultural differences in that the Indian sample had a significant relationship between yoga practice and the longer the practitioners have practiced yoga and the levels of self-awareness and decentering. On the other hand, for the Spanish sample the greater the amount of exercise and the frequency of the yoga practice the greater the levels of self-awareness and decentering. These cultural differences may result from differences in the reasons for yoga practice in the two cultures; while in India yoga is often used as a spiritual practice while in Spain yoga is often used as an exercise.

 

This study employed natural groups; yoga practitioners compared to non-practitioners. This leaves open the possibility that the differences in self-awareness and self-regulation seen were due to the different types of people who choose to practice yoga versus those that don’t and not to the practice of yoga itself. Other results are correlative and thereby don’t allow conclusions regarding causation. Hence, conclusion must be tempered and manipulative follow-up studies are needed.

 

Nevertheless, the results suggest that yoga practice is associated with higher levels of self-awareness, particularly the awareness of their internal state, and self-regulation, particularly emotion regulation, but not self-transcendence. These are significant benefits of yoga practice that may relate to yoga’s positive effects on mental and physical health.

 

So, improve self-awareness and self-regulation with yoga practice.

 

“yoga may function through top-down and bottom-up mechanisms for the regulation of cognition, emotions, behaviors, and peripheral physiology, as well as for improving efficiency and integration of the processes that subserve self-regulation.” – Tim Gard

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Tolbaños-Roche L and Menon P (2021) Applying the S-ART Framework to Yoga: Exploring the Self-Regulatory Action of Yoga Practice in Two Culturally Diverse Samples. Front. Psychol. 12:585300. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.585300

 

Mindfulness practices form the core of numerous therapeutic programs and interventions for stress reduction and the treatment of different health conditions related to stress and life habits. Ways and means to regulate oneself effectively also form the foundation of the path of yoga in the accomplishment of holistic health and well-being. The self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART) model can be considered as an overarching neurobiological framework to explain the self-regulatory mechanisms of well-being present in mindfulness-based practices. The current study, by connecting and applying the S-ART framework to the self-regulatory mechanisms in yoga and generating related hypotheses, provides a theory-led explanation of the action of yoga practices, which is sparse in the literature. Testing the S-ART model in yoga in two culturally diverse samples, assessing the model-mapped psychological mechanisms of action, and exploring the influence of perseverance in yoga practice are the original contributions of this study. The study sample comprised 362 yoga practitioners and non-practitioners (197 Indian and 165 Spanish), who completed four tests of psychological variables indicative of the aforementioned three S-ART abilities. These tests were Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA), Experiences Questionnaire-Decentering (EQ-D) subscale, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), and Relational Compassion Scale (RCS). The results indicated significantly better self-awareness and self-regulatory abilities in yoga practitioners (Indian and Spanish in a combination) than non-practitioners, reflected in higher levels of interoceptive awareness and decentering abilities. Moreover, perseverance in yoga practice acted as a significant predictor of self-awareness and self-regulation in practitioners. An analysis of each cultural sample revealed some differences. Yoga practice and perseverance in it acted as a significant predictor of interoceptive awareness and decentering in Indian practitioners having more than 1 year of sustained yoga practice, but for the Spanish participants, physical exercise and frequency of yoga practice acted as better predictors of interoceptive awareness and decentering in comparison to yoga practice and perseverance in it. The obtained results suggested that the S-ART model provided preliminary but promising evidence for the self-regulatory mechanisms of action in yoga practice within a culturally diverse sample of yoga practitioners. This study also widens the scope of generating further hypotheses using the S-ART theoretical framework for testing the self-regulatory mechanisms of action in yoga practice.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.585300/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1692584_a0P58000000G0YfEAK_Psycho_20210729_arts_A

 

Improve Psychological Health with Extended Confinement with Mindfulness

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Improve Psychological Health with Extended Confinement with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“During a long-term professional containment, as implied by a long-term submarine patrol, mindful disposition appears as a protective functioning to efficiently manage with the constraints due to the confinement.” – Barbara Lefranc

 

Confinement for extended periods of time can have very detrimental effects on the psychological well-being of individuals. Solitary confinement is thought of as extreme punishment due to its negative psychological impact. But even when prolonged confinement is social, as in submarine deployment, it also has psychological consequences including problematic moods and decreases in cognitive ability. Mindfulness has been shown to improve cognition and mood even in confinement as occurs in prisons. So, it would be expected that mindfulness would be related to an individual’s ability to cope with the stresses of the prolonged confinement characteristic of life on deployed submarines.

 

In today’s Research News article “Subsurface Confinement: Evidence from Submariners of the Benefits of Mindfulness.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8267514/ ) Aufauvre-Poupon and colleagues recruited male submariners and had them complete measures of mindfulness, psychological functioning, interoception, sleep, food and appetite, and physical activity before during and after a deployment of at least 60 days. They then separated the participants based on factor analysis into a mindful and non-mindful group.

 

They report that as the patrol progressed the participants had significant decreases in positive experiences, sleep, and interoception and significant increases in negative experiences and emotions. In comparison to the non-mindful group, the mindfulness group had significantly greater positive experiences and interoception and significantly lower negative experiences and emotions during the deployment.

 

These results suggest not surprisingly that during a deployment in a confined space interoceptive ability and psychological health deteriorates. It should be noted that mindfulness was not manipulated. Rather those participants who were already mindful were compared to those who were not. Hence, the two groups were composed of different individuals who likely differed in many ways other than mindfulness and these differences may account for the results. Nevertheless, the mindful group had significantly less deterioration during the deployment.

 

A deployment in a confined space is very stressful and this could produce the deterioration in psychological well-being. Mindfulness though may be an antidote. It is known to improve the individual’s psychological and physical responses to stress. It is possible, then, that mindful submariners are better able to cope with the stress and thereby have smaller deceases in psychological health during the extended confinement of the deployment. This improved ability to cope with confinement may account for the ability of mindfulness to improve psychological health during confinement due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

So, improve psychological health with extended confinement with mindfulness.

 

“On many journeys, the hours are long and the days blend together. Nonetheless, these seafaring professionals have systems in place that allow them to be productive, keep their sanity, and even enjoy themselves.” – Kelly Chase

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Aufauvre-Poupon, C., Martin-Krumm, C., Duffaud, A., Lafontaine, A., Gibert, L., Roynard, F., Rouquet, C., Bouillon-Minois, J. B., Dutheil, F., Canini, F., Pontis, J., Leclerq, F., Vannier, A., & Trousselard, M. (2021). Subsurface Confinement: Evidence from Submariners of the Benefits of Mindfulness. Mindfulness, 1–11. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-021-01677-7

 

Abstract

Objectives

The subsurface ballistic missile nuclear submarine (SSBN) is an extreme professional environment in which personnel are both isolated and confined during patrols, which can last longer than 2 months. This environment is known to degrade submariners’ mood and cognition.

Methods

This exploratory, empirical study followed a cohort of 24 volunteer submariners. Dispositional mindfulness was assessed with the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, in order to identify two groups (mindful and non-mindful) and compare change in emotional state, interoception, and health behaviors during the patrol.

Results

Overall, psychological health deteriorated during the patrol. However, mindful submariners demonstrated better psychological adaptation and interoception than the non-mindful group. This was associated with better subjective health behaviors (sleeping and eating).

Conclusions

Dispositional mindfulness appears to protect against the negative effects of long-term containment in a professional environment, such as a submarine patrol. Our work highlights that mindfulness may help individuals to cope with stress in such situations. Developing mindfulness could also be an important preventive healthcare measure during quarantine imposed by the outbreak of a serious infectious disease.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8267514/

 

Reduce Sedentariness with Mindfulness

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Reduce Sedentariness with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“mindfulness- and acceptance-based practices can help exercisers establish the consistent, high-quality exercise practices required to experience the health benefits of exercise and physical activity.” – R. Shangraw

 

We tend to think that illness is produced by physical causes, disease, injury, viruses, bacteria, etc. But many health problems are behavioral problems such as sedentary lifestyle. Promoting exercise and reducing sedentariness has the potential to markedly improve health. Mindfulness training also has been shown to promote health and improve illness. Mindfulness and exercise, though, are not entirely independent. Research has been accumulating on the relationship between mindfulness and exercise. It makes sense, then, to summarize what has been learned.

 

In today’s Research News article “Exploring the Use of Meditation as a Valuable Tool to Counteract Sedentariness.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00299/full), Bigliassi and colleagues review and summarize the published research literature on the relationship of mindfulness with physical exercise,

 

They report that the published research has found that mindfulness increases physical activity in both normal, overweight and obese individuals. They also report that mindfulness increases self-compassion and it, in turn, increases the likelihood of engagement or reengagement in exercise. Mindfulness appears to facilitate exercise in active individuals by increasing sensory awareness of interoceptive and exteroceptive stimuli, making exercise more enjoyable. It can also improve mood and decrease anxiety which in turn reduces some emotional impediments to engaging in exercise. In addition, mindfulness reduces pain sensitivity which can improve engagement in high intensity exercises.

 

Both mindfulness and exercise are known to promote mental and physical health. The review suggests that they act synergistically with mindfulness making engaging in exercise more likely, increasing the sensory awareness of the exercise, reducing negative emotional impediments to exercise, increasing self-compassion, reducing the pain during exercise, and increasing the likelihood of reengagement in exercise after a lapse. Hence, mindfulness has beneficial effects to promote exercise, reducing sedentariness, and promoting health and well-being.

 

So, reduce sedentariness with Mindfulness.

 

“Practicing mindfulness exercises and daily physical activity has been shown repeatedly to help manage stress and depression, and promote mental balance and happiness.” – Defeat Diabetes Foundation

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Bigliassi M and Bertuzzi R (2020) Exploring the Use of Meditation as a Valuable Tool to Counteract Sedentariness. Front. Psychol. 11:299. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00299

 

Some forms of meditation have been recently proposed as effective tools to facilitate the handling of undesired thoughts and reappraisal of negative emotions that commonly arise during exercise-related situations. The effects of meditation-based interventions on psychological responses could also be used as a means by which to increase exercise adherence and counteract the detrimental consequences of sedentariness. In the present article, we briefly describe the effects of meditation on physical activity and related factors. We also propose a theoretical model as a means by which to further understanding of the effects of meditation on psychological, psychophysical, and psychophysiological responses during exercise. The results of very recent studies in the realms of cognitive and affective psychology are promising. The putative psychological mechanisms underlying the effects of meditation on exercise appear to be associated with the interpretation of interoceptive and exteroceptive sensory signals. This is primarily due to the fact that meditation influences the cerebral processing of physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts. In such instances, the bodily and perceptual responses that are commonly reported during exercise might be assuaged during the practice of meditation. It also appears that conscious presence and self-compassion function as an emotional backdrop against which more complex behaviors can be forged. In such instances, re-engagement to physical activity programs can be more effectively achieved through the implementation of holistic methods to treat the body and mind. The comments provided in the present paper might have very important implications for exercise adherence and the treatment of hypokinetic diseases.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00299/full

 

Alter the Brain and Memory Consolidation During Sleep with Meditation

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Alter the Brain and Memory Consolidation During Sleep with Meditation

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“meditation. The deep relaxation technique has been shown to increase sleep time, improve sleep quality, and make it easier to fall (and stay) asleep.” – Sleep Foundation

 

We spend about a third of our lives in sleep, but we know very little about it. It is known that sleep is not a unitary phenomenon. Rather, it involves several different states that can be characterized by differences in physiological activation, neural activity, and subjective experiences. These changes can be recorded from the scalp with an electroencephalogram (EEG).

 

In the waking state the nervous system shows EEG activity that is termed low voltage fast activity. The electrical activity recorded from the scalp is rapidly changing but only with very small size waves. When sleep first occurs, the individual enters into a stage called slow-wave sleep, sometimes called non-REM sleep. The heart rate and blood pressure decline even further and the muscles become very soft and relaxed. In this state the EEG shows a characteristic waveform known as the theta rhythm, which is a large change in voltage recorded that oscillates at a rate of 4 to 8 cycles per second. As the individual goes even deeper into sleep something remarkable happens as the individual enters into rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep). Here the muscles become extremely inhibited and flaccid, but the eyes move rapidly under the closed eyelids as if the individual was looking around. At the same time the heart rate and blood pressure increase and become very variable and sometimes very high.

 

Sleep has also been shown to be involved in memory consolidation. “Sleep is thought to strengthen information learned during the day, to select which experiences are best remembered and which are best forgotten, and to assimilate new knowledge into existing autobiographical networks.” It has been shown that mindfulness training, including meditation practice, affects sleep and tends to improve sleep and reduce insomnia. It has also been shown to affect memory. But there is need to further investigate the effects of meditation practice, particularly long-term meditation practice, on brain activity during sleep and wakefulness and memory consolidation to begin to understand the mechanisms by which meditation practice affects memory, sleep, and wakefulness.

 

In today’s Research News article “Different Patterns of Sleep-Dependent Procedural Memory Consolidation in Vipassana Meditation Practitioners and Non-meditating Controls.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03014/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1232595_69_Psycho_20200204_arts_A), Solomonova and colleagues recruited healthy young adult (aged 18-35 years) practitioners of Vipassana meditation and matched non-meditators for an afternoon nap study. The participants were measured for body awareness. On one day they engaged in a 90-minute nap preceded by either a 10-minute meditation or a 10-minute relaxation period. During the nap their EEG was recorded. The participants reported on their dreams when awoken halfway into and at the end of the nap. Before and after the nap the participants engaged in a 5-minute session measuring balance with a Nintendo game “Balance Bubble.”

 

They found that the meditators had significantly greater body awareness than the non-meditators. In addition, for meditators only, the higher the body awareness the better the performance on the balance task. Hence meditation practice is associated with better awareness of the body which was in turn related to their balance.

 

There were no significant differences between the groups in improvement on the balance task after the nap or in sleep structure as assessed with the EEG during the nap. Interestingly, the greater the lifetime meditation practice, the less time spent in slow-wave (non-REM) sleep. For the meditation group but not the controls, the greater the density of slow-wave (non-REM) sleep spindles during the nap, the greater the improvement in the balance task. On the other hand, for the non-meditators the greater the time spent in REM sleep, the greater the improvement in the balance task.

 

These findings suggest that memory consolidation for a balance task over a nap occurred in concert with different sleep architecture for the meditators and non-meditators. This suggests the meditation practice produce neuroplastic changes in the brain that resulted in different memory consolidation mechanisms during sleep. These are complex changes that suggest different neural processing of information during sleep in meditators.

 

So, alter the brain and memory consolidation during sleep with meditation.

 

“Given the many health concerns pertaining to sleep aid medication use in older adults,” he added, “mindfulness meditation appears to be a safe and sensible health promoting practice to improve sleep quality.” – David Black

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Solomonova E, Dubé S, Blanchette-Carrière C, Sandra DA, Samson-Richer A, Carr M, Paquette T and Nielsen T (2020) Different Patterns of Sleep-Dependent Procedural Memory Consolidation in Vipassana Meditation Practitioners and Non-meditating Controls. Front. Psychol. 10:3014. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03014

 

Aim: Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, and sleep spindles are all implicated in the consolidation of procedural memories. Relative contributions of sleep stages and sleep spindles were previously shown to depend on individual differences in task processing. However, no studies to our knowledge have focused on individual differences in experience with Vipassana meditation as related to sleep. Vipassana meditation is a form of mental training that enhances proprioceptive and somatic awareness and alters attentional style. The goal of this study was to examine a potential role for Vipassana meditation experience in sleep-dependent procedural memory consolidation.

Methods: Groups of Vipassana meditation practitioners (N = 22) and matched meditation-naïve controls (N = 20) slept for a daytime nap in the laboratory. Before and after the nap they completed a procedural task on the Wii Fit balance platform.

Results: Meditators performed slightly better on the task before the nap, but the two groups improved similarly after sleep. The groups showed different patterns of sleep-dependent procedural memory consolidation: in meditators, task learning was positively correlated with density of slow occipital spindles, while in controls task improvement was positively associated with time in REM sleep. Sleep efficiency and sleep architecture did not differ between groups. Meditation practitioners, however, had a lower density of occipital slow sleep spindles than controls.

Conclusion: Results suggest that neuroplastic changes associated with meditation practice may alter overall sleep microarchitecture and reorganize sleep-dependent patterns of memory consolidation. The lower density of occipital spindles in meditators may mean that meditation practice compensates for some of the memory functions of sleep.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03014/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1232595_69_Psycho_20200204_arts_A

 

Improve Body Awareness with Mindfulness

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Improve Body Awareness with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“We are so caught up in thought, distracted by everyday life and media, or simply in a hurry that we hardly feel anything anymore. Our life often only takes place in the head. But we are so much more! It is also very nourishing and beneficial to gradually develop a sense of appreciation and gratitude for the incredible performance that our body provides on a daily basis. Breathing, walking, eating and digesting, talking, hugging children, – let alone the five senses.” – Being mindful

 

Most of us spend the majority of our lives lost in thought. Even when we become aware of our surroundings it is principally of the sights and sounds surrounding us. It is usually only when something is very wrong that we become aware of our bodies, what is called interoceptive awareness. We are generally unaware of the signals from our bodies such as the breath, movements in the GI tract, heart beats accompanied with surges in blood pressure, the sensations from our muscles and joints, even the sensations from our skin.

 

Body awareness can be a good indicator of stress and emotional state. The lack of body awareness can be a real problem as this interoceptive awareness is needed to regulate and respond appropriately to the emotions. Being aware of the state of our bodies is also important for maintaining health, both for recognizing our physical state and also for making appropriate decisions about health-related behaviors. Interoceptive awareness is even fundamental to our sense of self and world view. Most contemplative practices focus attention on our internal state and thus improve our body awareness. There is a need to review and summarize what has been learned about the ability of mindfulness to improve body awareness.

 

In today’s Research News article “The relationship between mindfulness and objective measures of body awareness: A meta-analysis.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6874545/), Treves and colleagues review, summarize, and perform a meta-analysis of the published research literature on the effects of mindfulness on body awareness. They identified 15 published studies involving a total of 879 participants. Seven studies were randomized controlled trials (RCTs) while 8 were comparisons of long-term meditators to meditation naïve controls.

 

They found that overall the published research literature reports that there is a small but significant positive relationship between mindfulness and body awareness such that the higher the levels of mindfulness the higher the levels of body awareness. This relationship was only significant with the randomized controlled trials.

 

These findings are suggestive that mindfulness training produces a small but significantly greater sensitivity to bodily states. But these findings must be interpreted cautiously as the effect sizes were very small and only present in manipulative studies (RCTs). The fact that the relationship was only present for RCTs and not when long-term meditators were compared to meditation naïve participants suggests that something about the experimental procedure is critical in producing the effect. This may be contaminants such as participant or experimenter biases, demand characteristics, or sensitization effects. It may also suggest that short-term meditation practice increases sensitivity that habituates over time.

 

So, improve body awareness with mindfulness.

 

“With the mind in the body, we can regulate our responses to events, people, and situations, set up an early warning process to detect fight, flight, and freeze while making better, more conscious choices, notice muscular tension and release it within minutes, observe which areas of the body are habitually tight, tense, and need extra relaxation effort, be more aware of signs of tension or perceived danger in others and adjust our responses skillfully.” – Elad Levinson

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Treves, I. N., Tello, L. Y., Davidson, R. J., & Goldberg, S. B. (2019). The relationship between mindfulness and objective measures of body awareness: A meta-analysis. Scientific reports, 9(1), 17386. doi:10.1038/s41598-019-53978-6

 

Abstract

Although awareness of bodily sensations is a common mindfulness meditation technique, studies assessing the relationship between mindfulness and body awareness have provided mixed results. The current study sought to meta-analytically examine the relationship between mindfulness operationalized as a dispositional trait or a construct trained through short- (i.e., randomized controlled trials [RCTs]) or long-term mindfulness meditation practice with objective measures of body awareness accuracy. PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and Scopus were searched. Studies were eligible if they reported the association between mindfulness and body awareness, were published in English, and included adults. Across 15 studies (17 independent samples), a small effect was found linking mindfulness with greater body awareness accuracy (g = 0.21 [0.08, 0.34], N = 879). When separated by study design, only RCTs continued to show a significant relationship (g = 0.20, [0.02, 0.38], k = 7, n = 505). Heterogeneity of effects was low (I2 < 25%), although with wide confidence intervals. Effects were not moderated by study quality. Low fail-safe N estimates reduce confidence in the observed effects. Results suggest a small but potentially detectable relationship between mindfulness and body awareness accuracy. Future investigations could examine individual differences in body awareness as a mechanism within mindfulness interventions.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6874545/

 

Improve Eating Behavior in Obese Cancer Survivors with Mindfulness

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Improve Eating Behavior in Obese Cancer Survivors with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Mindful eating helps you distinguish between emotional and physical hunger. It also increases your awareness of food-related triggers and gives you the freedom to choose your response to them.” – Adda Bjarnadottir

 

Eating is produced by two categories of signals. Homeostatic signals emerge from the body’s need for nutrients, is associated with feelings of hunger, and usually work to balance intake with expenditure. Non-homeostatic eating, on the other hand, is not tied to nutrient needs or hunger but rather to the environment, to emotional states, and or to the pleasurable and rewarding qualities of food. These cues can be powerful signals to eat even when there is no physical need for food. External eating is non-homeostatic eating in response to the environmental stimuli that surround us, including the sight and smell of food or the sight of food related cause such as the time of day or a fast food restaurant ad or sign.

 

Mindful eating involves paying attention to eating while it is occurring, including attention to the sight, smell, flavors, and textures of food, to the process of chewing and may help reduce intake. Indeed, high levels of mindfulness are associated with lower levels of obesity and mindfulness training has been shown to reduce binge eating, emotional eating, and external eating.

 

A mindfulness training technique that was developed to treat addictions called Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) involves 10 weekly sessions of 2 hours and includes mindful breathing and body scan meditations, cognitive reappraisal to decrease negative emotions and craving, and savoring to augment natural reward processing and positive emotion. Participants are also encouraged to practice at home for 15 minutes per day. It is not known if MORE is effective in changing eating behavior in obese women cancer survivors.

 

In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement Restructures Reward Processing and Promotes Interoceptive Awareness in Overweight Cancer Survivors: Mechanistic Results From a Stage 1 Randomized Controlled Trial.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6552347/), Thomas and colleagues recruited obese (BMI >30) women who had a cancer diagnosis either current or in remission. They were randomly assigned to receive a 10-week, 1.5-hour session, once per week, of either a standard exercise and nutrition program or the Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) program. The participants were measured before and after the program for body composition, eating behaviors, interoceptive awareness, savoring the moment, and attention bias toward food. In addition, they were measured for muscular electrical responses to food and non-food pictures to assess responsiveness to cues.

They found that in comparison to baseline and the exercise and nutrition program Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) produced significantly greater increases in smiling to natural reward cues, and interoceptive awareness including increases in noticing body sensations, attention regulation, self-regulation, and body listening, and significant decreases in attentional responsiveness to food cues and external eating. Using a path analysis, they found that MORE had its effects on attentional responsiveness to food cues directly and also indirectly by its positive effects on attention bias toward natural reward cues that, in turn, negatively affected their responsiveness to food cues. Finally, these decreases in attentional responsiveness to food cues were related to decreases in the participants’ waist to hip ratio.

 

These results are interesting and suggest that Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) may reduce inappropriate responsiveness to food in obese women with cancer by increasing their awareness of their internal state (interoceptive awareness) and their responsiveness to natural reward cues. Hence, the training makes the women more sensitive to their actual internal state which makes them more responsive to real hunger and satiety and less responsive to non-homeostatic eating signals. In addition, it appears to allow them to receive more reward from non-food related natural stimuli and thereby reduce their need to receive reward through eating. Thus, MORE appears to improve obese women’s ability to better regulate their eating behavior.

 

So, improve eating behavior in obese cancer survivors with mindfulness.

 

“Mindfulness practice helps individuals develop skills for self-regulation by improving awareness of emotional and sensory cues, which are also important in altering one’s relationship with food.” –  Sunil Daniel

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Thomas, E. A., Mijangos, J. L., Hansen, P. A., White, S., Walker, D., Reimers, C., … Garland, E. L. (2019). Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement Restructures Reward Processing and Promotes Interoceptive Awareness in Overweight Cancer Survivors: Mechanistic Results From a Stage 1 Randomized Controlled Trial. Integrative cancer therapies, 18, 1534735419855138. doi:10.1177/1534735419855138

 

Abstract

Introduction: The primary aims of this Stage I pilot randomized controlled trial were to establish the feasibility of integrating exercise and nutrition counseling with Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), a novel intervention that unites training in mindfulness, reappraisal, and savoring skills to target mechanisms underpinning appetitive dysregulation a pathogenic process that contributes to obesity among cancer survivors; to identify potential therapeutic mechanisms of the MORE intervention; and to obtain effect sizes to power a subsequent Stage II trial. Methods: Female overweight and obese cancer survivors (N = 51; mean age = 57.92 ± 10.04; 88% breast cancer history; 96% white) were randomized to one of two 10-week study treatment conditions: (a) exercise and nutrition counseling or (b) exercise and nutrition counseling plus the MORE intervention. Trial feasibility was assessed via recruitment and retention metrics. Measures of therapeutic mechanisms included self-reported interoceptive awareness, maladaptive eating behaviors, and savoring, as well as natural reward responsiveness and food attentional bias, which were evaluated as psychophysiological mechanisms. Results: Feasibility was demonstrated by 82% of participants who initiated MORE receiving a full dose of the intervention. Linear mixed models revealed that the addition of MORE led to significantly greater increases in indices of interoceptive awareness, savoring, and natural reward responsiveness, and, significantly greater decreases in external eating behaviors and food attentional bias—the latter of which was significantly associated with decreases in waist-to-hip ratio. Path analysis demonstrated that the effect of MORE on reducing food attentional bias was mediated by increased zygomatic electromyographic activation during attention to natural rewards. Conclusions and Implications: MORE may target appetitive dysregulatory mechanisms implicated in obesity by promoting interoceptive awareness and restructuring reward responsiveness.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6552347/

 

Strengthen the Brain’s Interoceptive Networks with Mindfulness

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Strengthen the Brain’s Interoceptive Networks with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“mindfulness strengthens interoception, operationalized here as the mean insula connection strength within the overall connectome.” – Strong et al.

 

Most of us spend the majority of our lives lost in thought. Even when we become aware of our surroundings it is principally of the sights and sounds surrounding us. It is usually only when something is very wrong that we become aware of our bodies, what is called interoceptive awareness. We are generally unaware of the signals from our bodies such as the breath, movements in the GI tract, heart beats accompanied with surges in blood pressure, the sensations from our muscles and joints, even the sensations from our skin. Adding to the lack of awareness of our bodies we are also unaware of our implicit beliefs and attitudes about our bodies and the emotions that accompany these attitudes.

 

To exemplify this, just for a moment start paying attention to the sensations coming from the contact of your clothing with your skin. You were in all probability totally unaware of these sensations until your attention was directed toward them. Now notice the feelings from your facial muscles. Are they tense, relaxed, or something in-between. You probably were not aware of their state yet they can be good indicators of stress and your emotional state. This can be a real problem as interoceptive awareness is extremely important for our awareness of our emotional state which is in turn needed to regulate and respond appropriately to the emotions. Being aware of the state of our bodies is also important for maintaining health, both for recognizing our physical state and also for making appropriate decisions about health-related behaviors. Interoceptive awareness is even fundamental to our sense of self and world view.

 

Most contemplative practices focus attention on our internal state and thus improve our body awareness. But, in fact there is little empirical evidence on how this is accomplished. The insula cortex is a large piece of cerebral cortex has been covered and is buried deep inside at the juncture of the parietal, temporal, and frontal lobes. The insula is highly interconnected with a wide variety of other cortical and subcortical areas of the brain and it has been implicated in interoceptive awareness. So, changes in the insula may well reflect changes in interoceptive awareness. This suggests that mindfulness training would produce changes in the insula cortex.

 

In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness training induces structural connectome changes in insula networks.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5962606/ ), Sharp and colleagues examined the Magnetic Resonance Images (MRIs) from two groups of participants in a larger study. Both groups had received cognitive training plus physical fitness training, while one group received an additional mindfulness training. Training consisted of 3 70-minute training sessions per week for 16 weeks. Functional Magnetic Resonance Images (f-MRIs) were obtained before and after training as well as a subjective interoceptive awareness measure.

 

They found that only after the training that included mindfulness training was there a significant increase in the strength of the connections between the insula cortex on the right side of the brain and the rest of the brain. These results suggest that mindfulness training alters the connectivity of the brain region that underlies interoceptive awareness. This may explain how mindfulness training improves body awareness and in turn the ability to sense and regulate emotions. Because emotion regulation is so fundamental to psychological health, these findings could explain how mindfulness training improves mental health and relieves mental illness.

 

So, strengthen the brain’s interoceptive networks with mindfulness.

 

“”Mindfulness” is a capacity for heightened present-moment awareness that we all possess to a greater or lesser extent. Training this capacity seems to have a quieting effect on brain areas associated with our subjective appraisal of our self. By considering thoughts and feelings as transitory mental events that occur, but are separate from the self, people are able to lessen their hold on their worries and positive mental health outcomes follow.” – Sian Bellock

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Paul B. Sharp, Bradley P. Sutton, Erick J. Paul, Nikolai Sherepa, Charles H. Hillman, Neal J. Cohen, Arthur F. Kramer, Ruchika Shaurya Prakash, Wendy Heller, Eva H. Telzer, Aron K. Barbey. Mindfulness training induces structural connectome changes in insula networks. Sci Rep. 2018; 8: 7929. Published online 2018 May 21. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-26268-w

 

Abstract

Although mindfulness meditation is known to provide a wealth of psychological benefits, the neural mechanisms involved in these effects remain to be well characterized. A central question is whether the observed benefits of mindfulness training derive from specific changes in the structural brain connectome that do not result from alternative forms of experimental intervention. Measures of whole-brain and node-level structural connectome changes induced by mindfulness training were compared with those induced by cognitive and physical fitness training within a large, multi-group intervention protocol (n = 86). Whole-brain analyses examined global graph-theoretical changes in structural network topology. A hypothesis-driven approach was taken to investigate connectivity changes within the insula, which was predicted here to mediate interoceptive awareness skills that have been shown to improve through mindfulness training. No global changes were observed in whole-brain network topology. However, node-level results confirmed a priori hypotheses, demonstrating significant increases in mean connection strength in right insula across all of its connections. Present findings suggest that mindfulness strengthens interoception, operationalized here as the mean insula connection strength within the overall connectome. This finding further elucidates the neural mechanisms of mindfulness meditation and motivates new perspectives about the unique benefits of mindfulness training compared to contemporary cognitive and physical fitness interventions.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5962606/