Abstract
Mindfulness and accordant interventions are often used as complementary treatments to psychological or psychosomatic problems. This has also been gradually integrated into daily lives for the promotion of psychological well-being in non-clinical populations. The experience of mindful acceptance in a non-judgmental way brought about the state, which was less interfered by a negative effect. Mindfulness practice often begins with focused attention (FA) meditation restricted to an inner experience. We postulate that the brain areas related to an interoceptive function would demonstrate an intrinsic functional change after mindfulness training for the mindful novices along with paying more attention to internal processes. To further explore the influence of mindfulness on the organization of the brain regions, both functional connectivity (FC) in the voxel and the region of interest (ROI) level were calculated. In the current study, 32 healthy volunteers, without any meditation experiences, were enrolled and randomly assigned to a mindfulness-based stress reduction group (MBSR) or control group (CON). Participants in the MBSR group completed 8 weeks of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and rated their mindfulness skills before and after MBSR. All subjects were evaluated via resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) in both baselines and after 8 weeks. They also completed a self-report measure of their state and trait anxiety as well as a positive and negative affect. Pre- and post-MBSR assessments revealed a decreased amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF) in the right anterior cingulate gyrus (ACC.R), left anterior and posterior insula (aIC.L, pIC.L), as well as left superior medial frontal gyrus (SFGmed.L) in MBSR practitioners. Strengthened FC between right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC.R) and aIC.R was observed. The mean ALFF values of those regions were inversely and positively linked to newly acquired mindful abilities. Along with a decreased negative affect score, our results suggest that the brain regions related to attention and interoceptive function were involved at the beginning of mindfulness. This study provides new clues in elucidating the time of evaluating the brain mechanisms of mindfulness novices.
Highlights
By cultivating a state of sustained attention to internal processes in the present moment with acceptance and without judgment (Kabat-Zinn, 1990), mindfulness and accordant interventions have shown benefits with various psychological or psychosomatic problems when they are used as complementary treatments (Goyal et al, 2014)
mindfulness-based stress reduction group (MBSR), mindfulness-based stress reduction training group; CON, control group; values are given as a number or mean (SE)
Decreased amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF) was detected in three clusters, including the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC).R, aIC.L, and pIC.L accompanied by strengthened functional connectivity (FC) between pIC.L and bilateral amygdala
Summary
By cultivating a state of sustained attention to internal processes in the present moment with acceptance and without judgment (Kabat-Zinn, 1990), mindfulness and accordant interventions have shown benefits with various psychological or psychosomatic problems when they are used as complementary treatments (Goyal et al, 2014). Mindfulness meditators often report less acceptance (Brown and Ryan, 2003), more acceptance, and a better regulation of negative affect (Wenzel et al, 2020). For these reasons, mindful practices have been incorporated into daily lives rather than as independent psychological interventions. The state of well-being could be achieved by accepting instead of fighting to control emotions Corresponding to this notion, a recent study showed a significant association between mindfulness ability (especially non-judgmental acceptance facet) and the lesser use of emotion regulation strategies. It proved and indicated that mindfulness may facilitate better well-being by lessening the need for strenuous emotion regulation
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