<p>This article draws on research in neuroscience, cognitive science, developmental psychology, and education, as well as scholarship from contemplative traditions concerning the cultivation of positive development, to highlight a set of mental skills and socioemotional dispositions that are central to the aims of education in the 21st century. These include self-regulatory skills associated with emotion and attention, self-representations, and prosocial dispositions such as empathy and compassion. It should be possible to strengthen these positive qualities and dispositions through systematic contemplative practices, which induce plastic changes in brain function and structure, supporting prosocial behavior and academic success in young people. These putative beneficial consequences call for focused programmatic research to better characterize which forms and frequencies of practice are most effective for which types of children and adolescents. Results from such research may help refine training programs to maximize their effectiveness at different ages and to document the changes in neural function and structure that might be induced.</p>
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<p>Abstract Objective: This study examined whether mindfulness increased through participation in movement-based courses and whether changes in self-regulatory self-efficacy, mood, and perceived stress mediated the relationship between increased mindfulness and better sleep. Participants: 166 college students enrolled in the 2007–2008 academic year in 15 week classes in Pilates, Taiji quan, or GYROKINESIS. Methods: At beginning, middle, and end of the semester, participants completed measures of mindfulness, self-regulatory self-efficacy, mood, perceived stress, and sleep quality. Results: Total mindfulness scores and mindfulness subscales increased overall. Greater changes in mindfulness were directly related to better sleep quality at the end of the semester after adjusting for sleep disturbance at the beginning. Tiredness, Negative Arousal, Relaxation, and Perceived Stress mediated the effect of increased mindfulness on improved sleep. Conclusions: Movement-based courses can increase mindfulness. Increased mindfulness accounts for changes in mood and perceived stress, which explain, in part, improved sleep quality.</p>
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<p>This paper describes the initial development of a scale to assess the effects of meditation. The scale consists of two sections: Experiences During Meditation (EOM-DM) and Effects of Meditation in Everyday Life (EOM-EL). Scale evaluation on 236 participants involved factor analysis, reliability and validity analysis. The EOM-DM scale had five subscales: Cognitive effects, Emotional effects, Mystical experiences, Relaxation and Physical discomfort. The physical, emotional, expanded consciousness and cognitive item groups of the EOM-EL were analysed separately. Each scale had a single factor structure whereas analysis of the EOM-EL-cognitive scale identified four factors: Social relations, Cognitive ability, Non-judgemental acceptance and Behaviours and habits. Construct validity was explored by assessing correlations with existing measures: Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, FACIT Spiritual wellbeing subscale and POMS-Short Form. Although further development is required, the scale showed adequate psychometric properties and may be useful for clinicians and researchers to improve understanding of the effects of meditation practices.</p>
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Converging findings suggest that depressed individuals exhibit disturbances in positive emotion. No study, however, has ascertained which specific positive emotions are implicated in depression. We report two studies that compare how depressive symptoms relate to distinct positive emotions at both trait and state levels of assessment. In Study 1 (N=185), we examined associations between depressive symptoms and three trait positive emotions (pride, happy, amusement). Study 2 compared experiential and autonomic reactivity to pride, happy, and amusement film stimuli between depressive (n=24; DS) and non-depressive (n=31; NDS) symptom groups. Results indicate that symptoms of depression were most strongly associated with decreased trait pride and decreased positive emotion experience to pride-eliciting films. Discussion focuses on the implications these findings have for understanding emotion deficits in depression as well as for the general study of positive emotion.
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Sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility are vital to interpret neuroscientific results from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments. Here we examine the scan-rescan reliability of the percent signal change (PSC) and parameters estimated using Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM) in scans taken in the same scan session, less than 5 min apart. We find fair to good reliability of PSC in regions that are involved with the task, and fair to excellent reliability with DCM. Also, the DCM analysis uncovers group differences that were not present in the analysis of PSC, which implies that DCM may be more sensitive to the nuances of signal changes in fMRI data.
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Asymmetry of waking electroencephalography (EEG) alpha power in frontal regions has been correlated with waking emotional reactivity and the emotional content of dream reports. Little is known regarding alpha asymmetry during sleep. The present study was performed to compare alpha power and alpha power asymmetry in various brain regions across states of sleep and wakefulness. Waking and sleep EEG were recorded in a group of patients undergoing polysomnographic evaluation for possible sleep disorders. Alpha EEG asymmetry in frontal and temporal regions was significantly correlated in waking versus sleep, particularly during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. These results suggest that patterns of frontal alpha asymmetry are stable across sleep and waking and may be related to emotional reactivity during dreaming. During sleep, alpha power was highest during slow-wave sleep and lowest during REM sleep. Implications of these data for understanding the functional significance of alpha power during waking and sleeping are considered.
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This study aimed at studying the effect of yogic package (YP) with some selected pranayama, cleansing practices and meditation on pain intensity, inflammation, stiffness, pulse rate (PR), blood pressure (BP), lymphocyte count (LC), C-reactive protein (CRP) and serum uric acid (UA) level among subjects of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Randomized control group design was employed to generate pre and post data on participants and controls. Repealed Measure ANOVAs with Bonferroni adjustment were applied to check significant overall difference among pre and post means of participants and controls by using PASW (SPSS Inc. 18th Version). Observed result favored statistically significant positive effect of YP on selected RA parameters and symptoms under study at P<0.05, 0.01 and 0.001 respectively that showed remarkable improvement in RA severity after 40-day practice of YP. It concluded that YP is a significant means to reduce intensity of RA.
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OBJECTIVES: Previously it was shown that a brief yoga-based lifestyle intervention was efficacious in reducing oxidative stress and risk of chronic diseases even in a short duration. The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of this intervention in reducing stress and inflammation in patients with chronic inflammatory diseases.
DESIGN: This study reports preliminary results from a nonrandomized prospective ongoing study with pre-post design.
SETTING/LOCATION: The study was conducted at the Integral Health Clinic, an outpatient facility conducting these yoga-based lifestyle intervention programs for prevention and management of chronic diseases.
SUBJECTS: Patients with chronic inflammatory diseases and overweight/obese subjects were included while physically challenged, and those on other interventions were excluded from the study.
INTERVENTION: A pretested intervention program included asanas (postures), pranayama (breathing exercises), stress management, group discussions, lectures, and individualized advice.
OUTCOME MEASURES: There was a reduction in stress (plasma cortisol and β-endorphin) and inflammation (interleukin [IL]-6 and tumor necrosis factor [TNF]-α) at day 0 versus day 10.
RESULTS: Eighty-six (86) patients (44 female, 42 male, 40.07 ± 13.91 years) attended this program. Overall, the mean level of cortisol decreased from baseline to day 10 (149.95 ± 46.07, 129.07 ± 33.30 ng/mL; p=0.001) while β-endorphins increased from baseline to day 10 (3.53 ± 0.88, 4.06 ± 0.79 ng/mL; p=0.024). Also, there was reduction from baseline to day 10 in mean levels of IL-6 (2.16 ± 0.42, 1.94 ± 0.10 pg/mL, p=0.036) and TNF-α (2.85 ± 0.59, 1.95 ± 0.32 pg/mL, p=0.002).
CONCLUSIONS: This brief yoga-based lifestyle intervention reduced the markers of stress and inflammation as early as 10 days in patients with chronic diseases; however, complete results of this study will confirm whether this program has utility as complementary and alternative therapy.
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<p>We recently reported the presence of reliable asymmetries in frontal-brain electrical activity in infants that distinguished between certain positive- and negative-affect elicitors. In order to explore the degree to which these asymmetries in brain activity are associated with individual differences in affective response, 35 ten-month-old female infants were presented with a stranger-approach, mother-approach, and maternal-separation experience while an electroencephalogram (EEG) from the left- and right-frontal and left- and right-parietal scalp regions was recorded and facial and other behavioral responses were videotaped. Changes in frontal-EEG asymmetry reflected behavioral changes between conditions. In addition, individual differences in affective response to separation were related to differences in frontal-brain asymmetries. These findings indicate that lawful changes exist in asymmetries of frontal-brain activation during the expression of certain emotions in the first year of life and that individual differences in emotional responsivity are related to these measures of brain activity.</p>
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OBJECTIVE: This study was undertaken to identify brain structures associated with emotion in normal elderly subjects.
METHOD: Eight normal subjects aged 55-78 years were shown film clips intended to provoke the emotions of happiness, fear, or disgust as well as a neutral state. During emotional activation, regional cerebral blood flow was measured with the use of [15O]H2O positron emission tomography imaging, and subjective emotional responses were recorded. Data were analyzed by subtracting the values during the neutral condition from the values in the various emotional activations.
RESULTS: The stimuli produced a general activation in visual pathways that included the primary and secondary visual cortex, involving regions associated with object and spatial recognition. In addition, the specific emotions produced different regional limbic activations, which suggests that different pathways may be used for different types of emotional stimuli.
CONCLUSIONS: Emotional activation in normal elderly subjects was associated with increases in blood flow in limbic and paralimbic brain structures. Brain activation may be specific to the emotion being elicited but probably involves complex sensory, association, and memory circuitry. Further studies are needed to identify activations that are specific for emotion.
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<p>OBJECTIVES: Given the demands of caring for chronically ill children, it is not surprising that caregivers often experience high levels of chronic stress. A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program may offer relief to these caregivers by providing tools for self-care and heath promotion that otherwise may be lacking. METHODS: MBSR classes were offered without restriction to parents of children attending various clinics at a large urban children's medical centre. Caregivers completed the Profile of Mood States (POMS) and Symptoms of Stress Inventory (SOSI) both before and after program participation. RESULTS: Forty-four caregivers participated in one of seven group MBSR sessions that were offered between August 2001 and February 2004. Most were mothers of children with special needs and various chronic conditions, who had been diagnosed an average of 7 years previous. Prior to the intervention, caregivers reported very high levels of stress and mood disturbance. These decreased substantially over the 8-week program, with an overall reduction in stress symptoms of 32% (p < .001), and in total mood disturbance of 56% (p < .001). CONCLUSIONS: This brief MBSR program for caregivers of chronically ill children was successful in significantly decreasing substantial stress symptoms and mood disturbance. Further studies would benefit from using more rigorous methodology and applying the program to other groups of chronically stressed caregivers.</p>
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The common assumption that emotional expression mediates the course of bereavement is tested. Competing hypotheses about the direction of mediation were formulated from the grief work and social-functional accounts of emotional expression. Facial expressions of emotion in conjugally bereaved adults were coded at 6 months post-loss as they described their relationship with the deceased; grief and perceived health were measured at 6, 14, and 25 months. Facial expressions of negative emotion, in particular anger, predicted increased grief at 14 months and poorer perceived health through 25 months. Facial expressions of positive emotion predicted decreased grief through 25 months and a positive but nonsignificant relation to perceived health. Predictive relations between negative and positive emotional expression persisted when initial levels of self-reported emotion, grief, and health were statistically controlled, demonstrating the mediating role of facial expressions of emotion in adjustment to conjugal loss. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.
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The LASS theory proposes that Language and Situated Simulation both play central roles in conceptual processing. Depending on stimuli and task conditions, different mixtures of language and simulation occur. When a word is processed in a conceptual task, it first activates other linguistic forms, such as word associates. More slowly, the word activates a situated simulation to represent its meaning in neural systems for perception, action, and mental states. An fMRI experiment tested the LASS account. In a first scanning session, participants performed the property generation task to provide a measure of conceptual processing. In a second scanning session a week later, participants performed two localizer tasks measuring word association and situated simulation. Conjunction analyses supported predictions of the LASS theory. Activations early in conceptual processing overlapped with activations for word association. Activations late in conceptual processing overlapped with activations for situation generation. These results, along with others in the literature, indicate that conceptual processing uses multiple representations, not one. Furthermore, researchers must be careful drawing conclusions about conceptual processing, given that different paradigms are likely to produce different mixtures of language and simulation. Whereas some paradigms produce high levels of linguistic processing and low levels of simulation, other paradigms produce the opposite pattern.
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Major depression is a heterogeneous condition, and the search for neural correlates specific to clinically defined subtypes has been inconclusive. Theoretical considerations implicate frontostriatal, particularly subgenual prefrontal cortex (PFC), dysfunction in the pathophysiology of melancholia--a subtype of depression characterized by anhedonia--but no empirical evidence has been found yet for such a link. To test the hypothesis that melancholic, but not nonmelancholic depression, is associated with the subgenual PFC impairment, concurrent measurement of brain electrical (electroencephalogram, EEG) and metabolic (positron emission tomography, PET) activity were obtained in 38 unmedicated subjects with DSM-IV major depressive disorder (20 melancholic, 18 nonmelancholic subjects), and 18 comparison subjects. EEG data were analyzed with a tomographic source localization method that computed the cortical three-dimensional distribution of current density for standard frequency bands, allowing voxelwise correlations between the EEG and PET data. Voxel-based morphometry analyses of structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were performed to assess potential structural abnormalities in melancholia. Melancholia was associated with reduced activity in the subgenual PFC (Brodmann area 25), manifested by increased inhibitory delta activity (1.5-6.0 Hz) and decreased glucose metabolism, which themselves were inversely correlated. Following antidepressant treatment, depressed subjects with the largest reductions in depression severity showed the lowest post-treatment subgenual PFC delta activity. Analyses of structural MRI revealed no group differences in the subgenual PFC, but in melancholic subjects, a negative correlation between gray matter density and age emerged. Based on preclinical evidence, we suggest that subgenual PFC dysfunction in melancholia may be associated with blunted hedonic response and exaggerated stress responsiveness.
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The relationships between brain electrical and metabolic activity are being uncovered currently in animal models using invasive methods; however, in the human brain this relationship remains not well understood. In particular, the relationship between noninvasive measurements of electrical activity and metabolism remains largely undefined. To understand better these relations, cerebral activity was measured simultaneously with electroencephalography (EEG) and positron emission tomography using [(18)f]-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (PET-FDG) in 12 normal human subjects during rest. Intracerebral distributions of current density were estimated, yielding tomographic maps for seven standard EEG frequency bands. The PET and EEG data were registered to the same space and voxel dimensions, and correlational maps were created on a voxel-by-voxel basis across all subjects. For each band, significant positive and negative correlations were found that are generally consistent with extant understanding of EEG band power function. With increasing EEG frequency, there was an increase in the number of positively correlated voxels, whereas the lower alpha band (8.5-10.0 Hz) was associated with the highest number of negative correlations. This work presents a method for comparing EEG signals with other more traditionally tomographic functional imaging data on a 3-D basis. This method will be useful in the future when it is applied to functional imaging methods with faster time resolution, such as short half-life PET blood flow tracers and functional magnetic resonance imaging.
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BACKGROUND: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) holds promise as a noninvasive means of identifying neural responses that can be used to predict treatment response before beginning a drug trial. Imaging paradigms employing facial expressions as presented stimuli have been shown to activate the amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Here, we sought to determine whether pretreatment amygdala and rostral ACC (rACC) reactivity to facial expressions could predict treatment outcomes in patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).
METHODS: Fifteen subjects (12 female subjects) with GAD participated in an open-label venlafaxine treatment trial. Functional magnetic resonance imaging responses to facial expressions of emotion collected before subjects began treatment were compared with changes in anxiety following 8 weeks of venlafaxine administration. In addition, the magnitude of fMRI responses of subjects with GAD were compared with that of 15 control subjects (12 female subjects) who did not have GAD and did not receive venlafaxine treatment.
RESULTS: The magnitude of treatment response was predicted by greater pretreatment reactivity to fearful faces in rACC and lesser reactivity in the amygdala. These individual differences in pretreatment rACC and amygdala reactivity within the GAD group were observed despite the fact that 1) the overall magnitude of pretreatment rACC and amygdala reactivity did not differ between subjects with GAD and control subjects and 2) there was no main effect of treatment on rACC-amygdala reactivity in the GAD group.
CONCLUSIONS: These findings show that this pattern of rACC-amygdala responsivity could prove useful as a predictor of venlafaxine treatment response in patients with GAD.
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<p>BACKGROUND: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques were used to identify the neural circuitry underlying emotional processing in control and depressed subjects. Depressed subjects were studied before and after treatment with venlafaxine. This new technique provides a method to noninvasively image regional brain function with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. METHOD: Echo-planar imaging was used to acquire whole brain images while subjects viewed positively and negatively valenced visual stimuli. Two control subjects and two depressed subjects who met DSM-IV criteria for major depression were scanned at baseline and 2 weeks later. Depressed subjects were treated with venlafaxine after the baseline scan. RESULTS: Preliminary results from this ongoing study revealed three interesting trends in the data. Both depressed patients demonstrated considerable symptomatic improvement at the time of the second scan. Across control and depressed subjects, the negative compared with the positive pictures elicited greater global activation. In both groups, activation induced by the negative pictures decreased from the baseline scan to the 2-week scan. This decrease in activation was also present in the control subjects when they were exposed to the positive pictures. In contrast, when the depressed subjects were presented with the positive pictures they showed no activation at baseline, whereas after 2 weeks of treatment an area of activation emerged in right secondary visual cortex. CONCLUSION: While preliminary, these results demonstrate the power of using fMRI to study emotional processes in normal and depressed subjects and to examine mechanisms of action of antidepressant drugs.</p>
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Recent studies have identified a distributed network of brain regions thought to support cognitive reappraisal processes underlying emotion regulation in response to affective images, including parieto-temporal regions and lateral/medial regions of prefrontal cortex (PFC). A number of these commonly activated regions are also known to underlie visuospatial attention and oculomotor control, which raises the possibility that people use attentional redeployment rather than, or in addition to, reappraisal as a strategy to regulate emotion. We predicted that a significant portion of the observed variance in brain activation during emotion regulation tasks would be associated with differences in how participants visually scan the images while regulating their emotions. We recorded brain activation using fMRI and quantified patterns of gaze fixation while participants increased or decreased their affective response to a set of affective images. fMRI results replicated previous findings on emotion regulation with regulation differences reflected in regions of PFC and the amygdala. In addition, our gaze fixation data revealed that when regulating, individuals changed their gaze patterns relative to a control condition. Furthermore, this variation in gaze fixation accounted for substantial amounts of variance in brain activation. These data point to the importance of controlling for gaze fixation in studies of emotion regulation that use visual stimuli.
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Although there are many imaging studies on traditional ROI-based amygdala volumetry, there are very few studies on modeling amygdala shape variations. This paper presents a unified computational and statistical framework for modeling amygdala shape variations in a clinical population. The weighted spherical harmonic representation is used to parameterize, smooth out, and normalize amygdala surfaces. The representation is subsequently used as an input for multivariate linear models accounting for nuisance covariates such as age and brain size difference using the SurfStat package that completely avoids the complexity of specifying design matrices. The methodology has been applied for quantifying abnormal local amygdala shape variations in 22 high functioning autistic subjects.
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This multimethod series of studies merges the literatures on gratitude and risk regulation to test a new process model of gratitude and relationship maintenance. We develop a measure of appreciation in relationships and use cross-sectional, daily experience, observational, and longitudinal methods to test our model. Across studies, we show that people who feel more appreciated by their romantic partners report being more appreciative of their partners. In turn, people who are more appreciative of their partners report being more responsive to their partners' needs (Study 1), and are more committed and more likely to remain in their relationships over time (Study 2). Appreciative partners are also rated by outside observers as relatively more responsive and committed during dyadic interactions in the laboratory, and these behavioral displays are one way in which appreciation is transmitted from one partner to the other (Study 3). These findings provide evidence that gratitude is important for the successful maintenance of intimate bonds.
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BACKGROUND: Although it has been hypothesized that glucocorticoid hypersecretion in depressed patients leads to neuronal atrophy in the hippocampus, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) -based morphometry studies of the hippocampus to date have produced mixed results.
METHODS: In our MRI study, hippocampal volumes were measured in 25 depressed patients (13 with melancholia and 12 without melancholia) and 15 control subjects.
RESULTS: No significant differences in hippocampus volumes were found between any of the subject groups, although within subjects right hippocampal volumes were found to be significantly larger than left hippocampal volumes. Additionally, right and total (left + right) hippocampal volumes in control and depressed subjects were found to be positively correlated with trait anxiety as measured by the state/trait anxiety inventory.
CONCLUSIONS: Because our subject group is younger than those in studies reporting hippocampal atrophy, we conclude that longitudinal studies will be necessary for investigation of the lifelong course of hippocampal volumetry.
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<p>Several recent studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during recognition memory tests have suggested that the ability to neuromodulate as a function of cognitive demand may be impaired in older adults due to age-related cell loss and neural volume reduction in memory specific regions. In the current study, older adults (ages 59-77) were tested with fMRI during a delayed-recognition task in which memory load for faces was varied across trials. Activity was greater in amplitude for three- versus one-face stimuli within the superior, middle, and inferior frontal gyri, intraparietal sulcus, and fusiform gyrus. It was concluded that the ability to modulate activity with increasing load is preserved in older adults despite reductions in neural volume.</p>
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