Abstract
Mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) training has been proposed to improve attentional skills by modulating thalamo-cortical loops that affect the sensitivity of relevant cortical areas like the somatosensory cortex. This modulation may be reflected in the electroencephalographic (EEG) alpha rhythm, and could affect the processing of subsequently applied intracutaneous electrical stimuli. Participants took part in an MBSR training and participated in two EEG sessions. EEG was measured in variants of an endogenous orienting paradigm in which attention had to be directed to the left or right forearm. After the orienting interval, the electrical stimulus was applied, equally likely on the attended or the unattended forearm. One group of participants took part in the EEG session before and after the training, while the other group took part after the training, and another time, eight weeks later. The influence of the MBSR training and spatial attention were examined with behavioral measures, lateralized alpha power within the orienting interval, and with event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by the electrical stimuli. Self-reported mindfulness was clearly affected by the training, but no influence was found on other behavioral measures. Alpha power was clearly lateralized due to spatial attention and several ERP components (N130, N180, P340) were modulated by spatial attention but no support was found for an influence of the MBSR training. Finally, analyses revealed that individual differences in training time modulated some of the observed effects, but no support was found for an influence on attentional orienting.
Highlights
In the last decades, several authors have argued that meditation training techniques like mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR [1]) improve the efficiency of attentional orienting [2,3,4,5]
We examined whether Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire–short form (FFMQ-SF) scores obtained after the Mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) training were related to the overall duration of the individual training time as reported in the logbooks by including Individual Training Time as a covariate
No differences in training times were observed between the pre-post and the post-post2 groups in the session directly after the MBSR training (F(1,26) = 1.8, p = 0.186, ηp2 = 0.07; pre-post second session: 1,017 min, SE: 98; post-post2 first session: 1,211 min, SE: 105), in the second session Individual Training Time for the post-post2 group became larger as compared to the pre-post group (F(1,26) = 5.4, p = 0.028, ηp2 = 0.17; post-post2 second session: 1,498, SE: 151)
Summary
Several authors have argued that meditation training techniques like mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR [1]) improve the efficiency of attentional orienting [2,3,4,5]. Practitioners direct their attention to many parts of their body, starting with one of the toes and ending with the top of the head This type of training may be denoted as focused attention meditation [5]. If the ability to focus attention advances, this may result in reduced distraction and in an improved ability to monitor the content of experience, which may help to recognize the nature of emotional and cognitive patterns. The latter type is called open monitoring meditation [5]. This selective modulation may be reflected in local changes in the alpha (α) rhythm of the EEG [2]
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