Mindfulness training preserves sustained attention and resting state anticorrelation between default-mode network and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: A randomized controlled trial.

Clemens C C Bauer,Alfonso Nieto-Castanon,Liron Rozenkrantz,Dawa T Phillips,Camila Caballero,Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli,Martin R West,Ethan Scherer,John D E Gabrieli,Michael Mrazek

doi:10.1002/hbm.25197

Abstract

Mindfulness training can enhance cognitive control, but the neural mechanisms underlying such enhancement in children are unknown. Here, we conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with sixth graders (mean age 11.76 years) to examine the impact of 8 weeks of school‐based mindfulness training, relative to coding training as an active control, on sustained attention and associated resting‐state functional brain connectivity. At baseline, better performance on a sustained‐attention task correlated with greater anticorrelation between the default mode network (DMN) and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a key node of the central executive network. Following the interventions, children in the mindfulness group preserved their sustained‐attention performance (i.e., fewer lapses of attention) and preserved DMN–DLPFC anticorrelation compared to children in the active control group, who exhibited declines in both sustained attention and DMN–DLPFC anticorrelation. Further, change in sustained‐attention performance correlated with change in DMN–DLPFC anticorrelation only within the mindfulness group. These findings provide the first causal link between mindfulness training and both sustained attention and associated neural plasticity. Administered as a part of sixth graders' school schedule, this RCT supports the beneficial effects of school‐based mindfulness training on cognitive control.

Highlights

Cognitive control, or executive function, refers to a suite of related processes by which goals or plans influence behavior
We discovered a neural network characteristic associated with variation in sustained attention in children, and through an randomized controlled trial (RCT) design found novel causal evidence that mindfulness training, relative to coding training, preserved sustained attention in association with preservation of that neural network characteristic
Prior to intervention, better sustained attention positively correlated with greater resting-state anticorrelation between two distinct brain networks across all children: the default mode network (DMN) and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and right parietal components of the central executive network (CEN)

Summary

| INTRODUCTION

Executive function, refers to a suite of related processes by which goals or plans influence behavior. A critical component of cognitive control is sustained attention, which involves the ability to focus on external, task-relevant stimuli and responses, and to suppress task-irrelevant thoughts and feelings (i.e., lapses of attention or mind wandering) These dual processes correspond to brain activations in two neural networks: the central executive network (CEN) and the default mode network (DMN). Lack of segregation in activations of these networks leads to failure to attend to a task: Lapses in attention followed reduced activations in attention-related brain regions, including the CEN, along with reduced deactivations of the DMN (Weissman et al, 2006) Such functional segregation can be measured as a negative correlation (or anticorrelation) in functional connectivity patterns between core nodes of these two networks. To directly associate behavioral and brain plasticity, we examined whether pre–post intervention changes in sustained attention and in DMN–CEN anticorrelation would be correlated among the children who received the mindfulness training. The mindfulness curriculum aimed to train skills related to physical and mental strategies

| Participants and randomization procedures

| Procedures and blinding

| RESULTS

| DISCUSSION

Findings

| Limitations and implications