Neurocognitive correlates of the effects of yoga meditation practice on emotion and cognition: a pilot study.

Brett E Froeliger,Eric L Garland,F Joseph Mcclernon,Leslie A Modlin

doi:10.3389/fnint.2012.00048

Brett E Froeliger, Eric L Garland + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2012.00048

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Abstract

Mindfulness meditation involves attending to emotions without cognitive fixation of emotional experience. Over time, this practice is held to promote alterations in trait affectivity and attentional control with resultant effects on well-being and cognition. However, relatively little is known regarding the neural substrates of meditation effects on emotion and cognition. The present study investigated the neurocognitive correlates of emotion interference on cognition in Yoga practitioners and a matched control group (CG) underwent fMRI while performing an event-related affective Stroop task. The task includes image viewing trials and Stroop trials bracketed by neutral or negative emotional distractors. During image viewing trials, Yoga practitioners exhibited less reactivity in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) to negative as compared to neutral images; whereas the CG had the opposite pattern. A main effect of valence (negative > neutral) was observed in limbic regions (e.g., amygdala), of which the magnitude was inversely related to dlPFC activation. Exploratory analyses revealed that the magnitude of amygdala activation predicted decreased self-reported positive affect in the CG, but not among Yoga practitioners. During Stroop trials, Yoga practitioners had greater activation in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) during Stroop trials when negative, compared to neutral, emotional distractor were presented; the CG exhibited the opposite pattern. Taken together, these data suggest that though Yoga practitioners exhibit limbic reactivity to negative emotional stimuli, such reactivity does not have downstream effects on later mood state. This uncoupling of viewing negative emotional images and affect among Yoga practitioners may be occasioned by their selective implementation of frontal executive-dependent strategies to reduce emotional interference during competing cognitive demands and not during emotional processing per se.

Highlights

Hatha Yoga is a 600 year old practice that integrates physical poses, meditation, breath work, study of tantric philosophy and community outreach
No significant differences in Stroop Accuracy were observed: there was no main effect of group [yoga meditation practitioners (YMP) (0.002), and controls (0.04)] or valence [negative distractor (0.02) and neutral distractor (0.02)], nor was there a significant or group X valence interaction on accuracy (Table 2)
ANALYSIS OF BOLD RESPONSE DURING VIEWING TRIALS Interaction results BOLD response to distractor images was modulated by a group X distractor valence interaction in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) [i.e., middle frontal gyrus] [see Table 3; Figure 2]: the control group (CG) were found to have greater activation to negative as compared to neutral emotional images, whereas the YMP group exhibited comparatively decreased activation to both negative and neutral emotional images

Summary

Introduction

Hatha Yoga is a 600 year old practice that integrates physical poses (i.e., asana), meditation, breath work (i.e., pranayama), study of tantric philosophy and community outreach. Yoga has proven effective for improving emotional function in healthy (Hartfiel et al, 2011) and in clinical populations including reducing negative affect (Vadiraja et al, 2009), anxiety (Vadiraja et al, 2009; Streeter et al, 2010), depression (Banerjee et al, 2007), and improving emotional wellbeing (Moadel et al, 2007) These observed beneficial effects on cognitive and emotional health are thought to result in part from increased mindfulness arising from various yoga practices (Salmon et al, 2009).

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