Mindfulness meditation styles differently modulate source-level MEG microstate dynamics and complexity.

Background: The investigation of mindfulness meditation practice, classically divided into focused attention meditation (FAM), and open monitoring meditation (OMM) styles, has seen a long tradition of theoretical, affective, neurophysiological and clinical studies. In particular, the high temporal resolution of magnetoencephalography (MEG) or electroencephalography (EEG) has been exploited to fill the gap between the personal experience of meditation practice and its neural correlates. Mounting evidence, in fact, shows that human brain activity is highly dynamic, transiting between different brain states (microstates). In this study, we aimed at exploring MEG microstates at source-level during FAM, OMM and in the resting state, as well as the complexity and criticality of dynamic transitions between microstates. Methods: Ten right-handed Theravada Buddhist monks with a meditative expertise of minimum 2,265 h participated in the experiment. MEG data were acquired during a randomized block design task (6 min FAM, 6 min OMM, with each meditative block preceded and followed by 3 min resting state). Source reconstruction was performed using eLORETA on individual cortical space, and then parcellated according to the Human Connect Project atlas. Microstate analysis was then applied to parcel level signals in order to derive microstate topographies and indices. In addition, from microstate sequences, the Hurst exponent and the Lempel-Ziv complexity (LZC) were computed. Results: Our results show that the coverage and occurrence of specific microstates are modulated either by being in a meditative state or by performing a specific meditation style. Hurst exponent values in both meditation conditions are reduced with respect to the value observed during rest, LZC shows significant differences between OMM, FAM, and REST, with a progressive increase from REST to FAM to OMM. Discussion: Importantly, we report changes in brain criticality indices during meditation and between meditation styles, in line with a state-like effect of meditation on cognitive performance. In line with previous reports, we suggest that the change in cognitive state experienced in meditation is paralleled by a shift with respect to critical points in brain dynamics.

Meditation attenuates default-mode activity: A pilot study using ultra-high field 7 Tesla MRI.

OBJECTIVES: Mapping the neurobiology of meditation has been bolstered by functional MRI (fMRI) research, with advancements in ultra-high field 7 Tesla fMRI further enhancing signal quality and neuroanatomical resolution. Here, we utilize 7 Tesla fMRI to examine the neural substrates of meditation and replicate existing widespread findings, after accounting for relevant physiological confounds. METHODS: In this feasibility study, we scanned 10 beginner meditators (N = 10) while they either attended to breathing (focused attention meditation) or engaged in restful thinking (non-focused rest). We also measured and adjusted the fMRI signal for key physiological differences between meditation and rest. Finally, we explored changes in state mindfulness, state anxiety and focused attention attributes for up to 2 weeks following the single fMRI meditation session. RESULTS: Group-level task fMRI analyses revealed significant reductions in activity during meditation relative to rest in default-mode network hubs, i.e., antero-medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices, precuneus, as well as visual and thalamic regions. These findings survived stringent statistical corrections for fluctuations in physiological responses which demonstrated significant differences (p < 0.05/n, Bonferroni controlled) between meditation and rest. Compared to baseline, State Mindfulness Scale (SMS) scores were significantly elevated (F(3,9) = 8.16, p < 0.05/n, Bonferroni controlled) following the fMRI meditation session, and were closely maintained at 2-week follow up. CONCLUSIONS: This pilot study establishes the feasibility and utility of investigating focused attention meditation using ultra-high field (7 Tesla) fMRI, by supporting widespread evidence that focused attention meditation attenuates default-mode activity responsible for self-referential processing. Future functional neuroimaging studies of meditation should control for physiological confounds and include behavioural assessments.

Effects of short mindful breathing meditations on executive functioning in two randomized controlled double-blinded experiments.

While current models of mindfulness propose benefits to the executive functions of inhibition, updating and shifting through mindful breathing meditations, empirical findings on the effects of short mindful breathing meditations are inconclusive regarding their specificity and dose-response relations. Therefore, we compared short mindful breathing meditations (Experiment 1, 45 min over three sessions; Experiment 2, 80 min over four sessions) with relaxation trainings (progressive muscle relaxation; active control) and listening to podcasts (passive control) in two randomized controlled double-blinded trials. Reaction time tasks were used to assess the executive functions of updating (N-Back), inhibition (CPT-II), and shifting (Number-Letter Task). Results of both experiments suggest no mindfulness-specific improvements in executive functions. We conclude that effects following the first stages of mindfulness training may not be specific to the practice or too transient to be reliably measured in pre-post intervention designs. Implications for research in the field are discussed.

The Influence of Focused Attention and Open Monitoring Mindfulness Meditation States on True and False Memory.

Previous investigations into the effect of mindfulness meditation on false memory have reported mixed findings. One potential issue is that mindfulness meditation involves different styles that establish distinct cognitive control states. The present work aimed to address this issue by comparing the effects of single-session focused attention (FAM) and open monitoring (OMM) mindfulness meditation styles on true and false memory recall. Strengthened cognitive control states associated with FAM were predicted to increase true memory recall and decrease false memory recall. Conversely, weakened cognitive control established by OMM was predicted to increase false memory recall. Thirty-four meditation-naïve participants (23 females, mean age = 23.4 years, range = 18-33) first completed pre-meditation learning and recall phases of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) task. Participants then completed a single session of FAM or OMM prior to a second, post-meditation, round of DRM task learning and recall phases with a novel word list. Finally, participants completed a recognition test with true and false memory, and distractor words. Both FAM and OMM groups demonstrated significant increase in false memory recall between pre- and post-meditation recall tests but these groups did not differ with respect to true and false memory recall and recognition. The present findings are consistent with previous reports of increased false memory arising from mindfulness meditation. Distinct cognitive control states associated with FAM and OMM states do not result in distinct true and false memory formation, at least in meditation-naïve adults.

School-Based Neurofeedback Training for Sustained Attention.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether in situ neurofeedback training can be used as a tool to build sustained attention in the general student population and whether gains in attention translate to more effective work habits and learning skills. METHOD: Students participated in attention training game-based neurofeedback in situ for a period of 35 sessions of 25 min each. The study was built as a one-group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design. RESULTS: This study supports that classroom-based neurofeedback may be an effective tool to build sustained attention and translate these gains into observable work habits and learning behaviors including planning and organization. CONCLUSION: Neurofeedback has shown specificity in the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Published research has not, however, focused on its efficacy in developing attentional capacities in the general population. The promising results of this exploratory investigation warrant further applied research.

Long-Term and Meditation-Specific Modulations of Brain Connectivity Revealed Through Multivariate Pattern Analysis.

Neuroimaging studies have provided evidence that extensive meditation practice modifies the functional and structural properties of the human brain, such as large-scale brain region interplay. However, it remains unclear how different meditation styles are involved in the modulation of these large-scale brain networks. Here, using machine learning and fMRI functional connectivity, we investigated how focused attention and open monitoring meditation styles impact large-scale brain networks. Specifically, we trained a classifier to predict the meditation style in two groups of subjects: expert Theravada Buddhist monks and novice meditators. We showed that the classifier was able to discriminate the meditation style only in the expert group. Additionally, by inspecting the trained classifier, we observed that the Anterior Salience and the Default Mode networks were relevant for the classification, in line with their theorized involvement in emotion and self-related regulation in meditation. Interestingly, results also highlighted the role of specific couplings between areas crucial for regulating attention and self-awareness as well as areas related to processing and integrating somatosensory information. Finally, we observed a larger involvement of left inter-hemispheric connections in the classification. In conclusion, our work supports the evidence that extensive meditation practice modulates large-scale brain networks, and that the different meditation styles differentially affect connections that subserve style-specific functions.

Mindfulness in the focus of the neurosciences - The contribution of neuroimaging to the understanding of mindfulness.

Background: Mindfulness affects human levels of experience by facilitating the immediate and impartial perception of phenomena, including sensory stimulation, emotions, and thoughts. Mindfulness is now a focus of neuroimaging, since technical and methodological developments in magnetic resonance imaging have made it possible to observe subjects performing mindfulness tasks. Objective: We set out to describe the association between mental processes and characteristics of mindfulness, including their specific cerebral patterns, as shown in structural and functional neuroimaging studies. Methods: We searched the MEDLINE databank of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics via PubMed using the keywords: "mindfulness," "focused attention (FA)," "open monitoring (OM)," "mind wandering," "emotional regulation," "magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)" and "default mode network (DMN)." This review extracted phenomenological experiences across populations with varying degrees of mindfulness training and correlated these experiences with structural and functional neuroimaging patterns. Our goal was to describe how mindful behavior was processed by the constituents of the default mode network during specific tasks. Results and conclusions: Depending on the research paradigm employed to explore mindfulness, investigations of function that used fMRI exhibited distinct activation patterns and functional connectivities. Basic to mindfulness is a long-term process of learning to use meditation techniques. Meditators progress from voluntary control of emotions and subjective preferences to emotional regulation and impartial awareness of phenomena. As their ability to monitor perception and behavior, a metacognitive skill, improves, mindfulness increases self-specifying thoughts governed by the experiential phenomenological self and reduces self-relational thoughts of the narrative self. The degree of mindfulness (ratio of self-specifying to self-relational thoughts) may affect other mental processes, e.g., awareness, working memory, mind wandering and belief formation. Mindfulness prevents habituation and the constant assumptions associated with mindlessness. Self-specifying thinking during mindfulness and self-relational thinking in the narrative self relies on the default mode network. The main constituents of this network are the dorsal and medial prefrontal cortex, and posterior cingulate cortex. These midline structures are antagonistic to self-specifying and self-relational processes, since the predominant process determines their differential involvement. Functional and brain volume changes indicate brain plasticity, mediated by mental training over the long-term.

Focused attention meditation in healthy adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis of cross-sectional functional MRI studies.

Meditation trains the mind to focus attention towards an object or experience. Among different meditation techniques, focused attention meditation is considered foundational for more advanced practices. Despite renewed interest in its functional neural correlates, there is no unified neurocognitive model of focused attention meditation developed via quantitative synthesis of contemporary literature. Hence, we performed a quantitative systematic review and meta-analysis of all functional MRI studies examining focussed attention meditation. Following PRISMA guidelines, 28 studies were included in this review, of which 10 studies (200 participants) were amenable to activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis. We found that regions comprising three key functional brain networks i.e., Default-mode, Salience, and Executive Control, were consistently implicated in focused attention meditation. Furthermore, meditation expertise, mindfulness levels and attentional skills were found to significantly influence the magnitude, but not regional extent, of activation and functional connectivity in these networks. Aggregating all evidence, we present a unified neurocognitive brain-network model of focused attention meditation.

Focused-Attention Meditation Improves Flow, Communication Skills, and Safety Attitudes of Surgeons.

OBJECTIVE: Patient safety is a worldwide problem and a focus of academic research. Human factors and ergonomics (HFE) is an approach to improving healthcare work systems and processes. From the perspective of the cognitive ergonomics of HFE, the aim of this study is to improve the flow level, communication skills, and safety attitudes of surgeons through focused-attention meditation (FAM) training, thus helping to reduce adverse clinical events. METHODS: In total, 140 surgeons were recruited from three hospitals in China and randomly divided into two groups (FAM group and control group). The FAM group received 8 weeks of FAM training, while the control group was on the waiting list and did not receive any interventions. Three scales (WOLF, LCSAS, and SAQ-C) were used to measure the data of three variables (flow, communication skills, and safety attitude), respectively, at two times, before and after the intervention (pre-test and post-test). The incidence of adverse events during the intervention was also collected for both groups. RESULTS: The ANOVA results showed that all three variables had a significant main effect of time and significant interactions between time and group. The independent-sample T-test results showed that the incidence of adverse events during the intervention was significantly lower in the FAM group than in the control group. CONCLUSIONS: The intervention of FAM could significantly improve surgeons' flow levels, communication skills, and safety attitudes, potentially helping to reduce adverse clinical events.

A Retrospective Analysis of Three Focused Attention Meditation Techniques: Mantra, Breath, and External-Point Meditation.

Objective The goal of this study is to compare the effectiveness of three different meditation techniques (two internal focus techniques and one external focus technique) using a low-cost portable electroencephalography (EEG) device, namely, MUSE, for an objective comparison. Methods This is an IRB-approved retrospective study. All participants in the study were healthy adults. Each study participant (n = 34) was instructed to participate in three meditation sessions: mantra (internal), breath (internal), and external point. The MUSE brain-sensing headband (EEG) was used to document the "total time spent in the calm state" and the "total time spent in the calm or neutral state" (outcomes) in each three-minute session to conduct separate analyses for the meditation type. Separate generalized linear models (GLM) with unstructured covariance structures were used to examine the association between each outcome and the explanatory variable (meditation type). For all models, if there was a significant association between the outcome and the explanatory variable, pairwise comparisons were carried out using the Tukey-Kramer correction. Results The median time (in seconds) spent in the calm state while practicing mantra meditation was 131.5 (IQR: 94-168), while practicing breath meditation was 150 (IQR: 113-164), and while practicing external-point meditation was 100 (IQR: 62-126). Upon analysis, there was a significant association between the meditation type and the time spent in the calm state (p-value = 0.0006). Conclusion This is the first study comparing "internal" versus "external" meditation techniques using an objective measure. Our study shows the breath and mantra technique as superior to the external-point technique as regards time spent in the calm state. Additional research is needed using a combination of "EEG" and patient-reported surveys to compare various meditative practices. The findings from this study can help incorporate specific meditation practices in future mindfulness-based studies that are focused on healthcare settings and on impacting clinical outcomes, such as survival or disease outcomes.

Individual Differences in the Change of Attentional Functions With Brief One-Time Focused Attention and Open Monitoring Meditations.

Mindfulness meditation is increasingly used for clinical treatment and to improve well-being. One of the most fundamental benefits of mindfulness meditation is now considered as enhanced attentional control. Mindfulness meditation is a complex technique but most of its variants consist of a combination of two types of basic meditation practice: focused attention meditation (FAM) and open monitoring meditation (OMM). Although many studies have examined the effect of relatively long-term meditation on attention, some recent studies have focused on the effect of a brief one-time meditation on cognitive processing, including attentional functions. Furthermore, it is necessary to discuss the relationship between the effect of mindfulness meditation on attentional functions and personality traits (especially traits related to mindfulness). This study investigated whether attentional control is improved by a single 30-min FAM or OMM and whether the degree of improvement in attentional functions - alerting, orienting, and conflict monitoring - induced by the meditation varies according to the participant's trait scores related to mindfulness measured by the Five Facets Mindfulness Questionnaire. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups, i.e., FAM, OMM, and no-meditation (noM) groups, and given an Attentional Network Test before and after each 30-min meditation session. Compared with the noM group, there was no overall improvement in attentional functions with either type of meditation. However, there were associations between the change of the alerting function's score and the personality traits: in the FAM group, alerting scores were negatively associated with the nonreactivity facet of the FFMQ, and in the OMM group, alerting scores were positively associated with describing facet scores of the FFMQ. The results indicate that the effects of meditation methods on attentional functions could depend on the individual's traits related to mindfulness and that mindfulness meditation could sometimes appear to have no impact on attentional functions.

Differential Effects of Focused Attention and Open Monitoring Meditation on Autonomic Cardiac Modulation and Cortisol Secretion.

Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been used widely as a useful tool for the alleviation of various stress-related symptoms. However, the effects of MBIs on stress-related physiological activity have not yet been ascertained. MBIs primarily consist of focused-attention (FA) and open-monitoring (OM) meditation. Since differing effects of FA and OM meditation on brain activities and cognitive tasks have been mentioned, we hypothesized that FA and OM meditation have also differing effects on stress-related physiological activity. In this study, we examined the effects of FA and OM meditation on autonomic cardiac modulation and cortisol secretion. Forty-one healthy adults (aged 20-46 years) who were meditation novices experienced 30-min FA and OM meditation tasks by listening to instructions. During resting- and meditation-states, electrocardiogram transducers were attached to participants to measure the R-R interval, which were used to evaluate heart rate (HR) and perform heart rate variability (HRV) analyses. Saliva samples were obtained from participants pre- and post-meditation to measure salivary cortisol levels. Results showed that FA meditation induced a decrease in HR and an increase in the root mean square of successive differences (rMSDD). In contrast, OM meditation induced an increase in the standard deviation of the normal-to-normal interval (SDNN) to rMSSD ratio (SDNN/rMSSD) and a decrease in salivary cortisol levels. These results suggest that FA meditation elevates physiological relaxation, whereas OM meditation elevates physiological arousal and reduces stress.

Effect of one-session focused attention meditation on the working memory capacity of meditation novices: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study.

INTRODUCTION: Previous studies have revealed that one-session focused attention meditation (FAM) can improve top-down attention control, which is one of the factors of working memory capacity (WMC). In addition, FAM shares various neural substrates, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), with WMC. Thus, we hypothesized that one-session FAM would improve WMC by activating the DLPFC evoked by the top-down attention control. In this study, we examined whether FAM modified WMC in individuals with little to no meditation experience. METHODS: The participants were randomly assigned to either the FAM group (N = 13) or the control group (N = 17) who engaged in random thinking (i.e., mind-wandering). Before and after each 15-min intervention, the participants' WMC was measured according to the total number of correct answers in the Reading Span Test. During each intervention, functional near-infrared spectroscopy was employed to measure the blood flow in the participants' DLPFC and determine the top-down attention control effect. RESULTS: In the FAM group, WMC increased, and the bilateral DLPFC was activated during the intervention. As for the control group, WMC decreased after the intervention, and the bilateral DLPFC was not activated during the intervention. A correlation was also found among all participants between the increase in WMC and the activation of the bilateral DLPFC. CONCLUSION: The study findings suggest that top-down attention control during FAM can activate the bilateral DLPFC and increase WMC among meditation novices.

Meditation-induced cognitive-control states regulate working memory task performance.

Single-bout focused-attention meditation (FAM) and open-monitoring meditation (OMM) are assumed to bias metacontrol states towards more persistent versus more flexible processing, respectively. In Experiment 1, we tested whether monitoring and updating of working memory (WM) representations in an N-back task with high (3-back), medium (2-back), and low (1-back) WM demands (varied within participants) is affected by preceding single-bout FAM or OMM meditation (varied between participants and compared with a control group). The results showed that FAM promotes WM performance in the medium (2-back), but not in the high (3-back) or low (1-back) demand condition, whereas OMM did not affect WM performance. A replication of the 2-back condition only (Experiment 2) showed no meditation effect, but a replication of the 3-back condition only (Experiment 3) produced a similar pattern as the 2-back condition in Experiment 1, with FAM promoting performance compared with OMM and the control condition. Taken together, these findings suggest that the single-bout FAM does promote WM performance but only if the capacity demands are neither too high nor too low.

On the Neurobiology of Meditation: Comparison of Three Organizing Strategies to Investigate Brain Patterns during Meditation Practice.

Three broad organizing strategies have been used to study meditation practices: (1) consider meditation practices as using similar processes and so combine neural images across a wide range of practices to identify the common underlying brain patterns of meditation practice, (2) consider meditation practices as unique and so investigate individual practices, or (3) consider meditation practices as fitting into larger categories and explore brain patterns within and between categories. The first organizing strategy combines meditation practices defined as deep concentration, attention to external and internal stimuli, and letting go of thoughts. Brain patterns of different procedures would all contribute to the final averages, which may not be representative of any practice. The second organizing strategy generates a multitude of brain patterns as each practice is studied individually. The rich detail of individual differences within each practice makes it difficult to identify reliable patterns between practices. The third organizing principle has been applied in three ways: (1) grouping meditations by their origin-Indian or Buddhist practices, (2) grouping meditations by the procedures of each practice, or (3) grouping meditations by brain wave frequencies reported during each practice. Grouping meditations by their origin mixes practices whose procedures include concentration, mindfulness, or effortless awareness, again resulting in a confounded pattern. Grouping meditations by their described procedures yields defining neural imaging patterns within each category, and clear differences between categories. Grouping meditations by the EEG frequencies associated with their procedures yields an objective system to group meditations and allows practices to "move" into different categories as subjects' meditation experiences change over time, which would be associated with different brain patterns. Exploring meditations within theoretically meaningful categories appears to yield the most reliable picture of meditation practices.

Cortical reorganization processes in meditation naïve participants induced by 7 weeks focused attention meditation training.

BACKGROUND: Based on the evidence that meditation is associated with numerous beneficial effects on well-being and reduced stress-related symptoms, mindfulness-based techniques were increasingly implemented into psychotherapeutic programs. However, different meditation styles and the cross-sectional nature of most previous analyses resulted in a great variety of morphometric findings. The present study aims to elucidate cortical reorganization processes and altered axonal integrity caused by short-term meditation training, and benefits from solely using focused attention meditation (FAM). METHODS: 3 T MRI, including T1-MPRAGE and diffusion-weighted sequences, was performed in 27 healthy, meditation naïve participants (age: 43 ± 12.4 years) pre and post FAM meditation training (duration: 7.3 ± 0.4 weeks). Voxel-based morphometry was applied to assess brain changes in gray and white matter. Questionnaires were filled out by the individuals at both time-points to evaluate quality of life and self-awareness deficits. RESULTS: The major findings comprised (i) gray matter increases in the insula, the caudate nucleus and frontal cortices, (ii) decreases in extended parietotemporal regions, the right medial prefrontal cortex and the parahippocampal gyrus, as well as (iii) fractional anisotropy increases of the right hippocampus, the basal ganglia and adjacent regions. Regression analysis revealed an association of specific alterations with reduced levels of state anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: FAM training induced a broad range of dynamic brain alterations even within few weeks of training. Interestingly, this cohort revealed more, and partially different patterns of structural gray matter change compared to prior studies. The broad impact on neuronal organization processes may reflect more general outcomes related to health and well-being.

Religiosity and Meditation Practice: Exploring Their Explanatory Power on Psychological Adjustment.

There has been increased interest in the relationships between religiosity, meditation practice and well-being, but there is lack of understanding as to how specific religious components and distinct meditation practices could influence different positive and negative psychological adjustment outcomes. The aim of this study was to assess the explanatory power of religious beliefs and the practice of prayer, focused attention (FA), open monitoring (OM), and compassion meditation (CM) on psychological adjustment, taking into consideration a number of practice-related variables such as session length, frequency of practice and lifetime practice. Psychological adjustment was assessed by means of happiness, positive affect, depression, negative affect, and emotional overproduction. A cross-sectional design was used, with a final sample comprising 210 Spanish participants who completed an online assessment protocol. Hierarchical regressions were performed, including age, sex and psychotropic medication use in the first step as possible confounders, with the addition of religious beliefs and the practice of prayer, FA, OM, and CM in the second step. FA session length was related to all psychological adjustment outcomes: happiness (ΔR 2 = 0.09, p = 0.002; ß = 0.25, p = 0.001), positive affect (ΔR 2 = 0.09, p = 0.002; ß = 0.18, p = 0.014), depression (ΔR2 = 0.07, p = 0.004; ß = -0.27, p < 0.001), negative affect (ΔR 2 = 0.08, p = 0.007; ß = -0.27, p < 0.001) and emotional overproduction (ΔR 2 = 0.07, p = 0.013; ß = -0.23, p = 0.001). CM session length was related to positive affect (ß = 0.18, p = 0.011). CM practice frequency was associated with happiness (ΔR 2 = 0.06, p = 0.038; ß = 0.16, p = 0.041). Lifetime practice of FA was related to happiness (ΔR 2 = 0.08, p = 0.007; ß = 0.21, p = 0.030) and OM to emotional overproduction (ΔR 2 = 0.08, p = 0.037; ß = -0.19, p = 0.047). Religious beliefs and prayer seemed to be less relevant than meditation practices such as FA, OM, and CM in explaining psychological adjustment. The distinct meditation practices might be differentially related to distinct psychological adjustment outcomes through different practice-related variables. However, research into other forms of institutional religiosity integrating social aspects of religion is required.

Revealing Changes in Brain Functional Networks Caused by Focused-Attention Meditation Using Tucker3 Clustering.

This study examines the effects of focused-attention meditation on functional brain states in novice meditators. There are a number of feature metrics for functional brain states, such as functional connectivity, graph theoretical metrics, and amplitude of low frequency fluctuation (ALFF). It is necessary to choose appropriate metrics and also to specify the region of interests (ROIs) from a number of brain regions. Here, we use a Tucker3 clustering method, which simultaneously selects the feature vectors (graph theoretical metrics and fractional ALFF) and the ROIs that can discriminate between resting and meditative states based on the characteristics of the given data. In this study, breath-counting meditation, one of the most popular forms of focused-attention meditation, was used and brain activities during resting and meditation states were measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging. The results indicated that the clustering coefficients of the eight brain regions, Frontal Inf Oper L, Occipital Inf R, ParaHippocampal R, Cerebellum 10 R, Cingulum Mid R, Cerebellum Crus1 L, Occipital Inf L, and Paracentral Lobule R increased through the meditation. Our study also provided the framework of data-driven brain functional analysis and confirmed its effectiveness on analyzing neural basis of focused-attention meditation.

An investigation on the influence of yogic methods on heart rate variability.

BACKGROUND: The role of underlying mechanisms of yogic strategies which exert beneficiary effects on cardiac autonomic control is poorly understood. We have performed heart rate variability (HRV) analysis on subjects performing yogic methods and control subjects who mimic them through paced breathing and focused attention tasks using external cues. METHODS: Heart rate (HR) time series is generated from electrocardiogram measured from subjects of yogic group (YG); performing yogic practices (n = 15), paced breathing group (PBG); involved in breathing exercises cued at breathing rates (BR) from 3 to 15 cycles per minute (cpm) (n = 23), normal breathing group (NBG) under regular breathing (n = 15), and subjects performing three different cognitive tasks designated as focused attention group (FAG), (n = 24). HRV is analyzed using coherence plots, spectrograms, HRV parameters, and instantaneous frequency recurrence plots (IFRP). RESULTS: HRV is similar among YG and PBG (at BR <12 cpm) and significantly different for YG vs. NBG (p < 0.001) and PBG vs. NBG (p < 0.001). Regularity of breathing oscillations observed in HR is quantified using IFRP and is identical among FAG, PBG, and YG and significantly different for YG vs. NBG (p < 0.01), PBG vs. NBG (p < 0.01), and FAG vs. NBG (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Low-frequency breathing (BR <12 cpm) plays a primary role in eliciting physiologically significant changes in HRV. By identifying a similarity in breathing oscillations of HR of FAG, YG, and PBG, the results recognize the coexistence of attention and breathing strategies and postulate their joint role in sustaining autonomic benefits, while effects induced by breathing alone on HRV could be attained even intermittently.

The attention training technique causally reduces self-focus following worry provocation and reduces cognitive anxiety among self-focused individuals.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The attention training technique (ATT) is a component of metacognitive therapy developed to interrupt self-focused, threat-based processing underlying anxiety disorders. Whereas extant research supports the benefits of ATT, including in relation to anxiety reduction, study findings lead to equivocal conclusions as to whether ATT causally interrupts self-focused attention (SFA) as intended. An additional gap in the literature relates to investigating if ATT is especially effective for reducing anxiety among individuals experiencing a heightened self-focused state. The present study sought to address those two gaps in the literature. METHOD: Participants scoring high on a measure of general worry severity completed a worry provocation that increased SFA and then were randomized to ATT (n = 45), a mindfulness task (n = 44), or a distraction task (n = 44). RESULTS: ATT caused large reductions in SFA, whereas there were no changes in focus of attention following the mindfulness or distraction task. Anxiety reduction was found in relation to all three tasks; however, ATT, relative to distraction, was found to cause greater reduction in cognitive anxiety for individuals highly self-focused before the task. LIMITATIONS: The present study used an analogue sample and the design did not allow for an examination of the long-term benefit of ATT. CONCLUSIONS: Results support ATT causally interrupting self-focused states and that ATT is particularly effective in reducing cognitive anxiety among individuals who are self-focused.