Week 4 Flashcards
What are some of the psychological models for the mechanisms of changes after mindfulness?
Hölzel et al (2011): Plastic changes of mental and brain functions following mindfulness
- Attention regulation
- Body awareness
- Emotion regulation
- Self-perspective
Grabovac et al (2011): Draw on Buddhist psychology and proposed following changes after mindfulness
- Acceptance
- Attention regulation
- Ethical practice
- Attachment/aversion
Vago and Silbersweig (2012): Mindfulness promotes changes in
- Self-awareness
- Self-regulation
- Self-transcendence
What are the three main components of attention and which brain networks do they involve?
Three main components of attention:
- Alerting/sustained attention/vigilance: preparation for detecting an impending stimulus that is important to us
- Orienting: prioritise and select specific and salient information from multiple sensory inputs
- Conflict monitoring/Executive attention: monitor and resolve conflicts between what we orienting to and what we are distracted by
Brain regions involved in each component:
- Alerting: Noradrenaline system that originates in the locus coeruleus
- Orienting: Frontal and parietal areas
- Conflict monitoring/Executive attention: Executive network (inc. the ACC, anterior insula and basal ganglia)
How was Orienting, alerting and executive attention measured in the Tang et al. (2007) study?
Via the the Attention Network Test (ANT)
- During the ANT, participants were asked to respond to an arrow that is surrounded by flankers that point in the same or opposite direction of the arrow.
What were the findings of the Tang et al. (2007) study?
Main findings
- Greater improvement in conflict monitoring on the ANT in the IBMT group than in the control group
- This improvement in conflict monitoring was associated with improved intelligence in the IBMT group, although only marginally more so than the controls
- The groups did not differ in orientation or alerting
- The IBMT group demonstrated improved self-regulation of emotions, including enhanced positive moods and reduced negative moods
- Additionally, the IBMT group also lower anxiety and depression, decreased released stress-related cortisol and increased immunoreactivity than the controls
Who replicated Tang’s findings and what did they find?
- Ainsworth and colleagues in 2013
- one Focus Attention Meditation group and one Open Monitoring Meditation group
- both groups were tested both before and after the interventions on their trait mindfulness, trait anxiety and attention control. The modified Attention Network Test was also performed.
Findings:
–> both meditation groups, FA and OM, had improved executive function
–> no significant between group differences were discovered on alerting and orienting (same as Tang)
–> trait mindfulness and improved executive function was positively correlated.
Which brain region regulates executive attention, error detection and focused problem solving?
The Anterior cingulate cortex (the ACC).
What is the ACC’s major function during information processing?
- to detect and resolve conflicts
If a conflict is detected between task goals and distracting external stimuli, the ACC may activate and exert a top-down regulation, subsequently contribute to attention maintenance and therefore resolve the
conflict.
What were the findings of Hasenkamp’s ‘Focused attention’ study on conflict detection and error monitoring?
- study design: fMRI scans of 14 experienced Focus Attention meditators during breathing meditation
- involves: Mind Wandering –> Awareness of MW –> Shifting attention –> sustained focus –> MW
Findings:
- mind wandering suggests a form of conflict monitoring –> corresponding activation dorsal ACC.
- during the shift phase, meditators redirected attention from mind wandering back to briefing –> focus = activation in the lateral PFC and lateral inferior parietal cortex (IPL (lobe)). Suggests that these brain regions are involved in executive processing.
–> ACC has a role in detecting mind wandering and forwarding this information to our executive control networks (lateral PFC & IPL ) to bring our mind back to the focus phase.
What’s the caveat to mindfulness not showing any impact on alerting and orienting networks?
LONGER meditations did show a result (study by MacLean proves this!)
How does the trial by MacLean prove that mindfulness has an effect on orienting?
- one meditation group and one waitlist control
- sustained-attention task: participants were assessed by pressing the mouse button when they
saw a short line appear at the centre of a computer screen. Participants were instructed to not
to react when a long line was present (= filtering information, distinguishing important from unimportant) - 5 months later follow-up assessment on visual discrimination
–> the meditation group’s visual discrimination was improved –> associated with an increased perceptual sensitivity and vigilance during sustained visual attention –> suggests an improved orienting following the mediation training.
Who tested Sustained attention and orienting again?
MacCoon
Findings:
–> no difference between meditation group and controls, however improvements in visual discrimination improvement
Summing up, what do the trials teach us on the effects of mindfulness on alerting, orienting and conflict monitoring?
Given the results, there is a possibility that improvements in conflict monitoring, and orienting
could be achieved at early mindfulness practice, however, improved alerting could only be achieved
with more practice and training.
What are the 3 processes included in Mindfulness-based emotion regulation?
- Attention deployment: attending to mental processes such as emotion
- Cognitive change: changing cognitive appraisals patterns of emotions
- Response modulation: reducing maladaptive responses such as suppression
What are the neural networks involved in emotional processing?
- DLPFC: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex Dorsal
- AC: dorsal anterior cingulate
- DMPFC: dorsomedial prefrontal cortex
- vmPFC: ventromedial prefrontal cortex
- OFC: orbitofrontal cortex Ventral
- AC: ventral anterior cingulate
What are the two neural paths for emotional processing
Sense data are fed through thalamus, then:
- Short path: goes from the thalamus directly to the amygdala and is involved in nonreactivity,
triggering fight or flight response, if we detect something dangerous in the environment - Long path: takes the data to the higher order cortical areas (such as prefrontal cortex); data are
properly evaluated, the decision about the stimuli are made and the response strategy generated; then works upon the limbic areas, such as the amygdala, to cool it down or amplify its activity, if the fight or flight response is deemed appropriate.
Which cortex is part of the theory of mind network?
Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex
How do the brain processes in emotional regulation play out according to fMRI studies?
- emotional reactions evolve out of sensory perceptions fed into the limbic and cortical areas via the brainstem and the thalamus (bottom-up)
- automatic evaluations as pleasant or unpleasant, dangerous, or benign, take place at the level of amygdala and anterior insula.
- in the long path, travels along the evaluation circuit (ventromedial prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and the ventral anterior cingulate)
What’s the evaluation circuit?
- ventromedial prefrontal cortex
- orbitofrontal cortex
- ventral anterior cingulate
In the emotional regulation, what is the top down vs bottom up regulation?
Top down: The dorsal prefrontal cortex and the dorsal anterior cingulate provide the top-down regulation of the bottom-up stream by modulating semantic representations, or meaning, of an emotional stimulus.
Bottom up: the stimulus itself
What are the findings by Chiesa and colleagues (2013) with regards to top down and bottom up processing and emotional regulation?
Top down (more prevalent in meditation beginners): MBSR and other mindfulness based interventions have top down effects, especially on healthy people
Bottom up: short MBIs in clinical populations and experienced practitioners seem to have a bottom up effect
–> Mindfulness can be categorised into 3 main stages:
1) early stage which is characterised by effortful mindfulness engagement
2) middle or intermediate stage that involves effort to reduce mind wandering
3) advanced stage which is characterised by effortless mindful
What exactly IS top down processing and which areas in the brain does it involve?
Top-down emotion regulation:
- targets cognitions and thought process
- engages PFC-related cognitive-based system, such as attention, active cognitive control and conscious
monitoring
- involvement of brain regions including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and dorsal anterior cingulate
Effects of mindfulness on top down processing:
- reduction in self-referential processes due to mindful experiencing
- engagement of working memory areas such as lateral prefrontal cortex during the development of
mindfulness practice and bringing mind back after distraction.
- more evident in meditation or mindfulness beginners.
- involves active engagement of central-executive network but with decreased activation in the limbic area.
- During emotion regulation, mindfulness beginners tend to utilise increased intention effort to increase their attention and awareness in order to achieve better control over their emotions.
