Mindful Aging: The Effects of Regular Brief Mindfulness Practice on Electrophysiological Markers of Cognitive and Affective Processing in Older Adults

Peter Malinowski,Bethan R Mead,Thomas Gruber,Adam W Moore

doi:10.1007/s12671-015-0482-8

Abstract

There is growing interest in the potential benefits of mindfulness meditation practices in terms of counteracting some of the cognitive effects associated with aging. Pursuing this question, the aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of mindfulness training on executive control and emotion regulation in older adults, by means of studying behavioral and electrophysiological changes. Participants, 55 to 75 years of age, were randomly allocated to an 8-week mindful breath awareness training group or an active control group engaging in brain training exercises. Before and after the training period, participants completed an emotional-counting Stroop task, designed to measure attentional control and emotion regulation processes. Concurrently, their brain activity was measured by means of 64-channel electroencephalography. The results show that engaging in just over 10 min of mindfulness practice five times per week resulted in significant improvements in behavioral (response latency) and electrophysiological (N2 event-related potential) measures related to general task performance. Analyses of the underlying cortical sources (Variable Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography, VARETA) indicate that this N2-related effect is primarily associated with changes in the right angular gyrus and other areas of the dorsal attention network. However, the study did not find the expected specific improvements in executive control and emotion regulation, which may be due to the training instructions or the relative brevity of the intervention. Overall, the results indicate that engaging in mindfulness meditation training improves the maintenance of goal-directed visuospatial attention and may be a useful strategy for counteracting cognitive decline associated with aging.

Highlights

In recent years, interest in the psychological and neural effects of mindfulness meditation practice has grown significantly and emerging evidence demonstrates positive effects on cognitive (Chiesa et al 2011; Malinowski 2013b; Slagter et al 2011) and emotional (Goldin and Gross 2010) processes
Post hoc pairwise comparisons clearly demonstrated that the incongruent condition produced slower response time (RT) (p < 0.001; Bonferroni adjusted) and lower hit rates (HRs) (p < 0.005; Bonferroni adjusted) than the other three conditions, confirming that the conflict introduced in the incongruent condition increased processing requirements
RTs and HRs were subjected to Time (2) × Condition (4) × Group (2) mixed ANOVAs to determine intervention related changes in mindfulness training group (MTG) and brain training group (BTG)

Summary

Introduction

Interest in the psychological and neural effects of mindfulness meditation practice has grown significantly and emerging evidence demonstrates positive effects on cognitive (Chiesa et al 2011; Malinowski 2013b; Slagter et al 2011) and emotional (Goldin and Gross 2010) processes. The vast majority of available data stem from investigating the effects of standard interventions such as mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) and similar programs. As these programs include a whole range of different exercises and activities, only some of which involve mindfulness meditation practice, they do not offer the required specificity for determining which components are responsible for observed changes. When studying these comprehensive interventions it is not possible to attribute their established beneficial outcomes unequivocally to mindfulness practices, as opposed to other components within the program

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