The Mindful Brain and Emotion Regulation in Mood Disorders

In the paper

“Over the past 30 years, numerous patients have benefited from mindfulness-based group interventions (Baer 2003; Ospina et al., 2007)”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Baer 2003
• Not checked yetcites Ospina et al., 2007

In the paper

“The midline PFC appears to be recruited in response to negative mood induction (Farb et al., 2010), reading self-referential trait words (Farb et al., 2007) and exposure to negative-self beliefs (Goldin et al., 2010).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Farb et al., 2010
• Not checked yetcites Farb et al., 2007
• Not checked yetcites Goldin et al., 2010

In the paper

“Encouragingly, short term mindfulness interventions appear to increase the ability to notice changes in the sensory field and refocus attention appropriately (Jha et al., 2007).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Jha et al., 2007

In the paper

“Several other studies have observed more extensive reductions in cortical activity during meditation (Lou et al., 1999, Lazar et al., 2000, Baerensten et al., 2010, Ives-Deliperi 2011), an effect that appears to increase with greater meditation experience (Brefczynski-Lewis, 2007).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Lou et al., 1999
• Not checked yetcites Lazar et al., 2000
• Not checked yetcites Baerensten et al., 2010

In the paper

“Non-judgmental attention appears to allow for novel and emergent feelings of self-compassion, which can powerfully attenuate an individual’s negative response to unpleasant events (Leary et al., 2007).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Leary et al., 2007

In the paper

“In a congruent finding, patients with social anxiety disorder demonstrated a reduced amygdala response to a negative emotional challenge following MBSR, and reduced subjective sadness ratings when using the regulatory strategy of attending to their breath (Goldin et al. 2010).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Goldin et al. 2010

In the paper

“In keeping with this theory, meditation practice has been associated with increased activity among the limbic system, thalamus, and anterior cingulate cortex, linking sensory information to the cortex (Newberg et al., 2001; Brefczynski-Lewis et al., 2007).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Newberg et al., 2001
• Not checked yetcites Brefczynski-Lewis et al., 2007

In the paper

“A second study related MBSR training to greater connectivity within auditory and visual sensory networks, and during a listening task, greater PFC connectivity with auditory cortex and inhibition of visual cortex (Kilpatrick et al., 2011).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Kilpatrick et al., 2011

In the paper

“More abstract feelings of social compassion appear to activate a similar network, though social compassion is longer lasting and later activating than empathy for physical pain (Immordino-Yang et al., 2009).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Immordino-Yang et al., 2009

In the paper

“For example, a mindfulness intervention led to improved quality of life, depression, and fatigue scores in a Multiple Sclerosis population, but did not alter on ratings of physical symptoms such as lower and upper limb mobility (Grossman et al., 2010)”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Grossman et al., 2010

In the paper

“Grey matter changes have been observed after as short a period as the 8-week MBSR training intervention, predicting increased hippocampal and posterior attention network volume (Holzel et al, 2011)”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Holzel et al, 2011

In the paper

“Two recent studies of meditation’s effects on pain found reduction of cortical midline elaborative processing regions as well as increased activation of primary nocioceptive and sensory integration regions such as the insula and anterior cingulate (Zeidan, 2011; Grant, 2011).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Zeidan, 2011
• Not checked yetcites Grant, 2011

In the paper

“In mood disorders, self-compassion is endorsed as a meaningful therapeutic construct by many patients, whose chief difficulty lies in finding a way to realize this compassionate state (Pauley & McPherson, 2010).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Pauley & McPherson, 2010

In the paper

“Way et al. (2010) linked the trait measure of dispositional mindfulness to protective non-reactivity in the amygdala during rest and also in response to sadness challenge, whereas depressive trait measures predicted an opposite, activating response.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Way et al. (2010)

In the paper

“Dispositional mindfulness predicted a greater magnitude of this limbic-frontal tradeoff, suggesting that mindful participants were better able to leverage prefrontal attention networks to reduce stimulus-driven emotional reactivity.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Creswell et al., 2007

In the paper

“A recent neuroimaging study linked self criticism to dorsal prefrontal regions such as the dorsolateral PFC and dorsal anterior cingulate, whereas self-reassurance was linked to activity in the ventrolateral PFC, temporal pole and insula (Longe et al., 2010).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Longe et al., 2010

In the paper

“In one recent study by our group (Farb et al., 2007), the engagement of open, present-moment attention was associated with reductions in midline cortical activation but demonstrated novel activation of a right-lateralized network that was primarily characterized by sensory representations in the insula and secondary somatosensory cortices.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Farb et al., 2007

In the paper

“When emotional information was consciously attended, the emotional faces evoked less of an amygdala response and engaged greater prefrontal cortical resources.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Creswell et al., 2007

In the paper

“Mood disorders, however, are broadly characterized by a failure to adaptively regulate emotion, due to heightened negative reactivity and increased self-focus (Clark et al., 1994).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Clark et al., 1994

In the paper

“it is distinct from many forms of meditation in that it aims to broaden rather than focus attention, differing from purely concentrative practices that seek to sustain attention towards a single sensory object (Dunn et al., 1999; Lutz et al., 2008a).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Dunn et al., 1999
• Not checked yetcites Lutz et al., 2008a

In the paper

“Encouragingly, such sensory practices seem to activate distinct cortical regions from the dysfunctional prefrontal-limbic loop.”

In the paper

“Since cognitive elaboration automatically triggers negative self-judgments that cannot be voluntarily overridden, mindfulness training attempts to correct automatic dysphoric evaluation through an attention to sensation rather than evaluation.”

In the paper

“An important clinical implication of these findings is that for patients with a mood disorder, instructions to cognitively regulate negative emotion may be maladaptive, as emotional information from the limbic system is not impacted by efforts to engage the prefrontal cortices.”

In the paper

“Instead, habitual dysphoric interpretations are recreated during attempts to reappraise negative emotion, leading to rumination, in which elaborating on negative affect ironically perpetuates dysphoric mood (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000; Watkins et al., 2008).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000
• Not checked yetcites Watkins et al., 2008

In the paper

“we argue that a model of mindful emotion regulation requires two processes that are distinct from reappraisal: 1) attention to present moment sensation, as distinct from delving into memory or cognitive elaboration, and 2) equanimity, the suspension of judging experience to be intrinsically good or bad.”

In the paper

“Normative strategies for emotion regulation are predicated on reappraising aversive events in a more positive, narrative based-context, or on behavioral strategies for the suppression of emotionally expressive behaviour (Goldin et al. 2008; Gross, 2002).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Goldin et al. 2008
• Not checked yetcites Gross, 2002

In the paper

“While mindfulness training influences transitory brain activity, it also appears to effect longer-term structural changes commensurate with the repeated activation of limbic and interoceptive cortices.”

In the paper

“These structural change data suggest that mindfulness training may be increasing the habitual capacity for encoding momentary experience while reducing the tendency to orient reflexively to emotionally arousing stimuli.”

In the paper

“Thus, one important function of mindful attention may be the recruitment and integration of primary sensory cortices into prefrontal regions supporting conscious awareness, as well as refining such integration to prevent distraction from unintended distracting stimuli.”

In the paper

“suggesting that improvements were limited to subjective assessments of well-being rather than reducing patient awareness of physical symptoms.”

In the paper

“Of course, as has been articulated by Siegle (2007), mindfulness is more than simply engaging in this present-moment awareness; the rich forms of evaluation for empathetic, moral, and self-referential processing associated with prefrontal default mode activity are valid and important aspects of experience.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Siegle (2007)

In the paper

“Of course, some executive control is required to manipulate the focus of attention in mindful emotion regulation.”

In the paper

“Instead, attention is positively directed towards present moment sensation, providing a non-conceptual and non-threatening focus for attention that does not rely upon cortical midline activity.”

In the paper

“Rather, by practicing the disengagement of habitual interpretative and evaluative responses during cognition, it may be possible to widen the scope of interpretation to form new meaning previously inhibited by a habitual way of seeing the world.”

In the paper

“It should be noted that empathic concern is not purely a visceral and perceptual process articulated through limbic and inferior parietal regions respectively; more analytic approaches to taking on another’s perspective appear to also recruit cortical midline regions such as the medial PFC and posterior cingulate (Decety and Jackson, 2004).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Decety and Jackson, 2004

In the paper

“In this fashion, automatic recruitment of temporally-extended, self-referential narrative generation may undergo a form of neural extinction, restoring autonomy to the central executive system and freeing it from its habitual applications”

In the paper

“Mindfulness involves attending to contextual salience without concomitant recruitment of prefrontal evaluative processes, deploying attentional resources to recruit a network that limits habitual elaboration and self-referential narrative.”

In the paper

“Interestingly, the connectivity and grey matter plasticity data tend to include more limbic than prefrontal cortical regions, again suggesting that prefrontal regions may not be the critical targets of mindfulness training, but rather the PFC is affected by the redeployment of cognitive resources to less-rehearsed sensory pathways.”

In the paper

“In this fashion, mindful emotion regulation can be construed as a process of ‘turning toward’ momentary experience rather than an inhibition of cognition.”

In the paper

“These lateral regions may support more detached, objective, interoceptive and somatic awareness (Craig, 2002) that may serve as the primitive sensory representations of the “self””

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Craig, 2002

In the paper

“Thus one long-term index of mindful emotion regulation is the reduction of salient threat detection in the face of emotional challenge, which may be useful in the assessment of treatment efficacy and patient vulnerability in behaviorally normalized cases.”