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During selective attention, ∼7–14 Hz alpha rhythms are modulated in early sensory cortices, suggesting a mechanistic role for these dynamics in perception. Here, we investigated whether alpha modulation can be enhanced by “mindfulness” meditation (MM), a program training practitioners in sustained attention to body and breath-related sensations. We hypothesized that participants in the MM group would exhibit enhanced alpha power modulation in a localized representation in the primary somatosensory neocortex in response to a cue, as compared to participants in the control group. Healthy subjects were randomized to 8-weeks of MM training or a control group. Using magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recording of the SI finger representation, we found meditators demonstrated enhanced alpha power modulation in response to a cue. This finding is the first to show enhanced local alpha modulation following sustained attentional training, and implicates this form of enhanced dynamic neural regulation in the behavioral effects of meditative practice.
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BACKGROUND: Treatment-related symptoms and decreased health-related quality of life (HRQoL) frequently occur during chemotherapy for breast cancer. Although research findings suggest that yoga can reduce symptoms and Improve HRQoL after treatment, potential benefits of yoga during chemotherapy have received minimal attention.OBJECTIVE: To estimate accrual, adherence, study retention, and preliminary efficacy of a yoga intervention compared with an active control group for breast cancer patients during chemotherapy.
METHODS: Women with stage I-III breast cancer were recruited from 3 community cancer clinics and randomized to 10 weeks of gentle yoga or wellness education. Depressive symptoms, fatigue, sleep, and HRQoL were assessed at baseline, mid-intervention (Week 5), and after intervention (Week 10).
RESULTS: 40 women aged 29-83 years (median, 48 years; 88% white) were randomized to yoga (n = 22) or wellness education (n = 18). The groups did not differ significantly on baseline characteristics, adherence, or study retention. Participant feedback was positive and comparable between groups. Meaningful within-group differences were identified For sleep adequacy and quantity in yoga participants and for somnolence in wellness-education participants.
LIMITATIONS: Small sample size and lack of a usual-care control group.
CONCLUSIONS: This study established Feasibility of a community-based randomized trial of yoga and an active comparison group for women undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. Preliminary efficacy estimates suggest that yoga improves sleep adequacy Symptom severity and interference remained stable during chemotherapy for the yoga group and snowed a trend toward increasing in the control group. The study highlighted obstacles to multisite yoga research during cancer treatment.
FUNDING/SPONSORSHIP: National Cancer Institute (3U10 CA081851, PI; Shaw; R25 CA122061, PI: Avis); Translational Science Institute, Wake Forest School of Medicine.
<b>Abstract </b> Herbal medicinal materials have been used worldwide for centuries to maintain health and to treat disease. However, adulteration of herbal medicines remains a major concern of users and industry for reasons of safety and efficacy. Identification of herbal medicinal materials by DNA technology has been widely applied, started from the mid-1990s. In recent years, DNA barcoding of global plant species using four standard barcodes (<i>rbcL</i>, <i>matK</i>, <i>trnH</i>-<i>psbA</i> and ITS) has been a major focus in the fields of biodiversity and conservation. These DNA barcodes can also be used as reliable tools to facilitate the identification of herbal medicinal materials for the safe use of herbs, quality control, and forensic investigation. Many studies have applied these DNA barcodes for the identification of herbal medicinal species and their adulterants. The present article reviews efforts in the identification of herbal medicinal materials using the standard DNA barcodes and other DNA sequence-based markers.
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The Little Book of Yoga Breathing is a great little package that offers a lot. Pranayama, the practice of breath control, is detailed here in an easy-to-understand and even easier-to-practice format. Professional yoga instructor, Scott Shaw introduces 16 breathing exercises and how to get the best benefit from each of the forms by training, refining, and witnessing your breath. This book is for yoga practitioners and those who only consider themselves yoga admirers. Having trouble falling asleep? Try one of the calming breaths, Nadi Sudi, or the Nerve Purifying Breath. Have a long day ahead with no breaks until after dinner? Allow Ujjayi or the Hissing Breath to work its miracles. Also learn the Pranayama term in Sanskrit, how to pronounce it, what it means in English, and how to properly execute the breath to get the best results. And learn how to breathe while moving, standing, and leaning, and how each of these variations can affect your breathing practice.
Patients in the placebo arms of randomized controlled trials (RCT) often experience positive changes from baseline. While multiple theories concerning such “placebo effects” exist, peculiarly, none has been informed by actual interviews of patients undergoing placebo treatment. Here, we report on a qualitative study (n = 27) embedded within a RCT (n = 262) in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Besides identical placebo acupuncture treatment in the RCT, the qualitative study patients also received an additional set of interviews at the beginning, midpoint, and end of the trial. Interviews of the 12 qualitative subjects who underwent and completed placebo treatment were transcribed. We found that patients (1) were persistently concerned with whether they were receiving placebo or genuine treatment; (2) almost never endorsed “expectation” of improvement but spoke of “hope” instead and frequently reported despair; (3) almost all reported improvement ranging from dramatic psychosocial changes to unambiguous, progressive symptom improvement to tentative impressions of benefit; and (4) often worried whether their improvement was due to normal fluctuations or placebo effects. The placebo treatment was a problematic perturbation that provided an opportunity to reconstruct the experiences of the fluctuations of their illness and how it disrupted their everyday life. Immersion in this RCT was a co-mingling of enactment, embodiment and interpretation involving ritual performance and evocative symbols, shifts in bodily sensations, symptoms, mood, daily life behaviors, and social interactions, all accompanied by self-scrutiny and re-appraisal. The placebo effect involved a spectrum of factors and any single theory of placebo—e.g. expectancy, hope, conditioning, anxiety reduction, report bias, symbolic work, narrative and embodiment—provides an inadequate model to explain its salubrious benefits.
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Patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often experience anxiety and depression in relation to their respiratory condition. Anxiety and depression in this population are associated with decreased activity. The aim of this phenomenological study was to carry out in-depth qualitative interviews with a purposive sample of patients with asthma and COPD taking part in an 8-week mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) course to explore their experiences of MBCT. In particular, we were interested in how the mindfulness approach helped them, or not, and their awareness of any meaningful changes in relation to their breathlessness, activity levels, anxiety or low mood. Twenty-two patients were recruited from primary and secondary care to receive an 8-week course in MBCT. Two groups of MBCT were taught by qualified MBCT teachers in a community setting. Of the 22 patients who attended the MBCT course, 12 patients were purposively sampled to take part in an in-depth qualitative interview 2 months after completing the MBCT course. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Analysis was thematic. The themes that emerged included greater acceptance and reduced sense of disease-related stigma; noticing subtle bodily sensations to detect early warning signs of breathlessness; linking pulmonary rehabilitation advice with mindfulness; developing a new relationship to breathing, activity and associated thoughts; having a greater sense of control; being creative around limitations and removing psychological barriers to being more active. Findings offer, for the first time, qualitative evidence on how MBCT benefits patients with asthma and COPD who experience anxiety and depression. These data provide a useful adjunct to existing quantitative evidence in this area.
Patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often experience anxiety and depression in relation to their respiratory condition. Anxiety and depression in this population are associated with decreased activity. The aim of this phenomenological study was to carry out in-depth qualitative interviews with a purposive sample of patients with asthma and COPD taking part in an 8-week mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) course to explore their experiences of MBCT. In particular, we were interested in how the mindfulness approach helped them, or not, and their awareness of any meaningful changes in relation to their breathlessness, activity levels, anxiety or low mood. Twenty-two patients were recruited from primary and secondary care to receive an 8-week course in MBCT. Two groups of MBCT were taught by qualified MBCT teachers in a community setting. Of the 22 patients who attended the MBCT course, 12 patients were purposively sampled to take part in an in-depth qualitative interview 2 months after completing the MBCT course. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Analysis was thematic. The themes that emerged included greater acceptance and reduced sense of disease-related stigma; noticing subtle bodily sensations to detect early warning signs of breathlessness; linking pulmonary rehabilitation advice with mindfulness; developing a new relationship to breathing, activity and associated thoughts; having a greater sense of control; being creative around limitations and removing psychological barriers to being more active. Findings offer, for the first time, qualitative evidence on how MBCT benefits patients with asthma and COPD who experience anxiety and depression. These data provide a useful adjunct to existing quantitative evidence in this area.
This article explains the utility of mindfulness in achieving harmony, health, and happiness.
Evidence that placebo acupuncture is an effective treatment for chronic pain presents a puzzle: how do placebo needles appearing to patients to penetrate the body, but instead sitting on the skin’s surface in the manner of a tactile stimulus, evoke a healing response? Previous accounts of ritual touch healing in which patients often described enhanced touch sensations (including warmth, tingling or flowing sensations) suggest an embodied healing mechanism. In this qualitative study, we asked a subset of patients in a singleblind randomized trial in irritable bowel syndrome to describe their treatment experiences while undergoing placebo treament. Analysis focused on patients’ unprompted descriptions of any enhanced touch sensations (e.g., warmth, tingling) and any significance patients assigned to the sensations. We found in 5/6 cases, patients associated sensations including “warmth” and “tingling” with treatment efficacy. The conclusion offers a “neurophenomenological” account of the placebo effect by considering dynamic effects of attentional filtering on early sensory cortices, possibly underlying the phenomenology of placebo acupuncture.
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Introduction: Acupuncture is a complex holistic intervention in which patient–practitioner relationships and healing changes occur in interactive, iterative ways. Qualitative research is one way to capture such complexity. This study sought to understand better the experiences of adolescents involved in acupuncture treatment. Materials and methods: We included a qualitative substudy as part of a pilot randomized sham-controlled study of the use of Japanese acupuncture to treat chronic pelvic pain in adolescent girls. Seven (7) interviews were attained. Themes were double-coded and analyzed using qualitative analysis software. Results: Regardless of treatment arm, all subjects reported positive study-related changes, often attributed to positive qualities of the patient–practitioner relationship. Participants in both the sham and verum acupuncture treatment arms reported in the narratives that they were unsure of their study assignment. In contrast, the study's close-ended success of blinding question suggests that some participants were sure of their treatment allocation. Conclusions: As we continue to study acupuncture using sham controls, we need a better understanding of the possible affects of sham treatments on both treatment outcomes and success of blinding. Qualitative research is one-way to explore subtle emergent changes in participants' experiences.
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This paper assesses archaeology's contribution to debates regarding the ecological focus of early Buddhism and Hinduism and its relevance to global environmentalism. Evidence for long-term human:non-human entanglement, and the socio-economically constructed element of nature' on which Indic culture supposedly rests, challenges post-colonial tropes of India's utopian, eco-friendly' past, whilst also highlighting the potency of individual human:non-human epistemologies for building historically grounded models of Indian environmentalism. For early Buddhism, I mediate between two polarized views: one promoting the idea of eco-dharma' as a reflection of Buddhism's alignment with non-violence (ahimsa), and the alleviation of suffering (dukkha); a second arguing that early Buddhist traditions have been misappropriated by western environmentalism. I argue that the latter view subscribes to canonical models of passive monks removed from worldly concerns, despite archaeological evidence for socially-engaged monastic landlordism from the late centuriesbc. Others cite this evidence only to negate Buddhism's eco-credentials, thereby overlooking the human:non-human entanglement theme within modern environmental discourse, while the predominant focus on non-human suffering overlooks convergences between modern and ancient ecological ethics and environmental health. Case studies include examples of Buddhist land and water management in central India, set within discussions of human v. non-human-centric frameworks of well-being and suffering, purity and pollution, and broader Indic medico-ecological epistemologies, as possible models for collective responses to environmental stress. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]; Copyright of World Archaeology is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
The scientific discovery of novel training paradigms has yielded better understanding of basic mechanisms underlying cortical plasticity, learning and development. This study is a first step in evaluating Tai Chi (TC), the Chinese slow-motion meditative exercise, as a training paradigm that, while not engaging in direct tactile stimulus training, elicits enhanced tactile acuity in long-term practitioners. The rationale for this study comes from the fact that, unlike previously studied direct-touch tactile training paradigms, TC practitioners focus specific mental attention on the body’s extremities including the fingertips and hands as they perform their slow routine. To determine whether TC is associated with enhanced tactile acuity, experienced adult TC practitioners were recruited and compared to age–gender matched controls. A blinded assessor used a validated method (Van Boven et al. in Neurology 54(12): 2230–2236, 2000) to compare TC practitioners’ and controls’ ability to discriminate between two different orientations (parallel and horizontal) across different grating widths at the fingertip. Study results showed that TC practitioners’ tactile spatial acuity was superior to that of the matched controls (P < 0.04). There was a trend showing TC may have an enhanced effect on older practitioners (P < 0.066), suggesting that TC may slow age related decline in this measure. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate a long-term attentional practice’s effects on a perceptual measure. Longitudinal studies are needed to examine whether TC initiates or is merely correlated with perceptual changes and whether it elicits long-term plasticity in primary sensory cortical maps. Further studies should also assess whether related somatosensory attentional practices (such as Yoga, mindfulness meditation and Qigong) achieve similar effects.
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Background: Many patients with heart failure (HF) experience persistent symptoms and poor health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Psychosocial distress is common and adversely affects HF symptoms and HRQOL. A holistic meditation (HOME) intervention that combines mindfulness, compassionate meditation, and self-management may reduce psychosocial distress. Purpose: The aims of this study were to examine the feasibility and acceptability of the HOME intervention in patients with HF and to obtain preliminary data about its effects on psychosocial factors (depressive symptoms, perceived control, and social support), HF symptoms, and HRQOL. Methods: Weekly 90-minute intervention sessions were delivered to 11 patients with HF for 12 weeks. Data on feasibility and acceptability were collected for 12 weeks, and data on psychosocial factors, HF symptoms, and HRQOL were collected at baseline and after the intervention. Results: Eleven of 13 enrolled patients completed all intervention sessions; 2 withdrew because of family health issues. Mean acceptability scores for all sessions ranged from 98% to 100%. In paired t test analyses, perceived control (P = .02, Cohen d = 0.82) and social support (P = .008, Cohen d = 1.00) increased, severity of depressive symptoms (P < .001, Cohen d = 1.54) and HF symptoms (P < .001, Cohen d = 1.91) decreased, and HRQOL was improved (P < .001, Cohen d = 1.82). Conclusions: The HOME intervention was feasible and acceptable and had positive effects on psychosocial variables, HF symptoms, and HRQOL for patients with HF. Our results indicate that treatment effects should be tested in a larger, controlled clinical trial.
Treatments for breast cancer assault the body and can disrupt the relationship between body, mind, and spirit. In this article, we discuss the ways in which yoga was experienced and understood as a healing therapy among ten female breast cancer survivors between the ages of 26 and 70 and living with treatment-related arm morbidity. The women participated in 6 weekly sessions of gentle Iyengar yoga and responded to open-ended surveys before and after the intervention. The majority of women reported physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits from the practice of yoga. Specific benefits included improvements in physical function and relief from symptoms related to treatment; increased peace of mind and hope; and connection to other yoga participants. Integral to this healing process was social support from other breast cancer survivors.
Metastatic breast cancer (MBC) remains a terminal illness for which major treatment advances are slow to appear, and hence it is crucial that effective palliative interventions be developed to reduce the cancer-related symptoms of women with this condition during the remaining years of their lives. This pilot/feasibility study examined a novel, yoga-based palliative intervention, the Yoga of Awareness Program, in a sample of women with MBC. The eight-week protocol included gentle yoga postures, breathing exercises, meditation, didactic presentations, and group interchange. Outcome was assessed using daily measures of pain, fatigue, distress, invigoration, acceptance, and relaxation during two preintervention weeks and the final two weeks of the intervention. Thirteen women completed the intervention (mean age=59; mean time since diagnosis=7 years; two African American, 11 Caucasian). During the study, four participants had cancer recurrences, and the physical condition of several others deteriorated noticeably. Despite low statistical power, pre-to-post multilevel outcomes analyses showed significant increases in invigoration and acceptance. Lagged analyses of length of home yoga practice (controlling for individual mean practice time and outcome levels on the lagged days) showed that on the day after a day during which women practiced more, they experienced significantly lower levels of pain and fatigue, and higher levels of invigoration, acceptance, and relaxation. These findings support the need for further investigation of the effects of the Yoga of Awareness Program in women with MBC.