Abstract
Interest has grown in using mindfulness meditation to treat conditions featuring excessive impulsivity. However, while prior studies find that mindfulness practice can improve attention, it remains unclear whether it improves other cognitive faculties whose deficiency can contribute to impulsivity. Here, an eight-week mindfulness intervention did not reduce impulsivity on the go/no-go task or Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), nor produce changes in neural correlates of impulsivity (i.e. frontostriatal gray matter, functional connectivity, and dopamine levels) compared to active or wait-list control groups. Separately, long-term meditators (LTMs) did not perform differently than meditation-naïve participants (MNPs) on the go/no-go task. However, LTMs self-reported lower attentional impulsivity, but higher motor and non-planning impulsivity on the BIS-11 than MNPs. LTMs had less striatal gray matter, greater cortico-striatal-thalamic functional connectivity, and lower spontaneous eye-blink rate (a physiological dopamine indicator) than MNPs. LTM total lifetime practice hours (TLPH) did not significantly relate to impulsivity or neurobiological metrics. Findings suggest that neither short- nor long-term mindfulness practice may be effective for redressing impulsive behavior derived from inhibitory motor control or planning capacity deficits in healthy adults. Given the absence of TLPH relationships to impulsivity or neurobiological metrics, differences between LTMs and MNPs may be attributable to pre-existing differences.
Highlights
In light of this conceptual appeal, interest has grown in the prospect of using mindfulness meditation to help treat conditions that feature high levels of impulsivity and deficits in behavioral control, such as attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)[6] and substance use disorder (SUD)[7]
In order to assess whether mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) training had an effect on impulsivity or neurobiological measures, a two-way repeated measures ANOVA was performed for each measure, with time as within-subject factor and group as between-subjects factor (WL, Health Enhancement Program (HEP), MBSR)
While a number of studies find that mindfulness can improve attention[10,11], it remains unclear whether mindfulness is effective in improving other cognitive faculties whose deficiency can contribute to impulsive behavior
Summary
In light of this conceptual appeal, interest has grown in the prospect of using mindfulness meditation to help treat conditions that feature high levels of impulsivity and deficits in behavioral control, such as attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)[6] and substance use disorder (SUD)[7] While disorders such as ADHD and SUD are multifaceted and likely stem from dysfunction of multiple neurobiological and cognitive domains, treatments that target the impulsive symptoms present in these disorders offer one approach for improving outcomes. While a number of studies in both healthy individuals[10,11] and individuals with ADHD6 have found evidence that mindfulness meditation can improve attention and reduce attentional impulsivity, it is unclear whether mindfulness meditation is effective in improving other cognitive faculties, such as motor inhibition and long-term planning, whose deficiency can contribute to motor and non-planning impulsivity, respectively. Congruent with its putative underlying regulator (dopamine), sEBR may not have a context-independent, directionally specific relationship with impulsivity, but appears to be meaningfully associated with impulsivity
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
