Altered processing of self-related emotional stimuli in mindfulness meditators

Lutz, J. Gary; Brühl, Annette Beatrix; Doerig, Nadja; Scheerer, Hanne; Achermann, Roger; Weibel, Antoinette; Jäncke, Lutz; Herwig, Uwe

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.09.057

Cited by 49 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…In a previous study, Campanella and colleagues found that participants who underwent an 8-week mindfulness meditation training showed increased scores post-training on different facets of the Temperament and Character Inventory, a personality measure assessing how individuals evaluate different facets of their self-concept such as self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence (Campanella, Crescentini, Urgesi, & Fabbro, 2014). Another pertinent study showed that experienced Vipassana meditators, compared to meditation-naïve participants, were emotionally less reactive towards negative self-relevant stimuli (Lutz et al, 2016). These studies provide preliminary evidence that meditation expertise and mindfulness-meditationbased interventions can influence different aspects of self-referential processing, including emotional evaluation of self-concept content.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Who am I? Differential effects of three contemplative mental trainings on emotional word use in self-descriptions

et al. 2017

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In a large-scale longitudinal mental training study, we examined whether learning different contemplative practices can change the emotional content of people's self-concept as assessed through emotional word use in the Twenty Statement Test. During three 3-month training modules, participants learned distinct practices targeting attentional, socio-affective, or socio-cognitive capacities, or were re-tested. Emotional word use specifically increased after socio-cognitive training including perspective-taking on self and others, compared to attentional and socio-affective compassionbased trainings, and retest-controls. Overall, our findings demonstrate training-induced behavioral plasticity of the emotional self-concept content in healthy adults and could indicate greater emotional granularity. These findings can inform future interventions in mental health, given that alterations in self-referential processing are a common contributing factor in psychopathology.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Who am I? Differential effects of three contemplative mental trainings on emotional word use in self-descriptions

et al. 2017

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“…Positive self-appraisal seems to evoke stronger activity in the precuneus, visual areas [65], amygdala and insula [65,67] when directly contrasted with self-critical adjectives, whereas self-critical displayed increased occipital activations [65], but also amygdala activation [67]. Occipital/ visual regions such as visual areas and the precuneus seem to activate more during self-criticism conditions [65,66].…”

Section: Self-criticismmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Activation of ACC has been found in relation to body dissatisfaction [64] but also during positive self-appraisal [65], being also reported its connection with non-clinical eating disordered psychopathology [64]. In fact, the exact network involved in positive and negative self-appraisal seems puzzling, as two studies [65,66] found the same network of regions when contrasting between self-critical vs. neutral and positive self-appraisal vs. neutral conditions. Using verbal material, dorsomedial and dorsolateral PFC [65], mid-frontal regions, insula, precuneus and visual areas [66,67] responded to both positive and negative conditions when contrasted with neutral adjectives.…”

Section: Self-criticismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, the exact network involved in positive and negative self-appraisal seems puzzling, as two studies [65,66] found the same network of regions when contrasting between self-critical vs. neutral and positive self-appraisal vs. neutral conditions. Using verbal material, dorsomedial and dorsolateral PFC [65], mid-frontal regions, insula, precuneus and visual areas [66,67] responded to both positive and negative conditions when contrasted with neutral adjectives. Positive self-appraisal seems to evoke stronger activity in the precuneus, visual areas [65], amygdala and insula [65,67] when directly contrasted with self-critical adjectives, whereas self-critical displayed increased occipital activations [65], but also amygdala activation [67].…”

Section: Self-criticismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Psychological risk factors, cognitive-contextual approaches and neural correlates in eating disorders: an integrative review

Marques¹,

Almeida²,

Santos³

et al. 2017

IJCNMH

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Eating disorders (ED) are a significant source of physical and psychosocial impairment, mainly amongst women in adolescence and early adulthood. The development and progression of ED are influenced by a large set of environmental and social factors, but it has also been recognized that ED have important biological and psychological determinants.This article reviews the literature on ED concerning defensive emotion and psychological processes involved in the development and maintenance of ED, but also their neuroimaging/electrophysiological correlates. Furthermore, it also reviews treatment approaches that focused on the improvement of ED patients' symptomatology.An extensive literature exists regarding neuroimaging/electrophysiological studies associated with clinical features of ED patients in terms of body image and food processing and reward/inhibition processes. However, studies addressing the neural correlates of psychological processes, such as rumination, experiential avoidance, cognitive fusion and self-criticism, and the defensive emotion of shame, which are key components for the development and maintenance of ED, are still scarce if not lacking. In the context of this cognitive set, cognitive-contextual approaches for ED patients, such as mindfulness, acceptance-and compassion-based interventions are promising to change the way individuals relate to their aversive experiences, but still requires a deeper understanding of the mechanisms by which it operates and further testing of its therapeutic efficacy.This review highlights the lack of neuroimaging/electrophysiological studies in ED patients in which concerns shame and other relevant psychological processes, but also the scarce evidence in terms of brain modifications associated with therapeutic efficacy of cognitive-contextual approaches that help to change the way individuals relate to their body, weight and food concerns, reduce maladaptive emotion regulation strategies and improve well-being in patients suffering from ED.

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“…Previous studies have primarily focused on neural correlates of one particular type of mental training, namely mindfulness meditation (for reviews see, e.g., Fox et al., 2014; Tang, Hölzel, & Posner, 2015) and mainly applied functional neuroimaging methods. Nonetheless, the available results indicate that a decoupling between mPFC and insula may be linked to greater detachment from a narrative self‐focus after an 8‐week mindfulness‐based stress reduction training (Farb et al., 2007) and that greater activation in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) could be associated with decreased reactivity toward self‐related emotions in experienced mindfulness meditators (Lutz et al., 2016). The above findings suggest that mindfulness meditation, which trains sustained attention on present‐moment awareness and a nonjudgmental stance toward one's experiences (Kabat‐Zinn, 2003) may be associated with activity in brain areas related to self‐referential processing and emotion regulation, comprising areas of the CMS.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Change in emotional self‐concept following socio‐cognitive training relates to structural plasticity of the prefrontal cortex

et al. 2018

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IntroductionSelf‐referential processing is a key component of the emotional self‐concept. Previous studies have shown that emotional self‐referential processing is related to structure and function of cortical midline areas such as medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and that it can be altered on a behavioral level by specific mental training practices. However, it remains unknown how behavioral training‐related change in emotional self‐concept content relates to structural plasticity.MethodsTo address this issue, we examined the relationship between training‐induced change in participant's emotional self‐concept measured through emotional word use in the Twenty Statement Test and change in cortical thickness in the context of a large‐scale longitudinal mental training study called the ReSource Project.ResultsBased on prior behavioral findings showing increased emotional word use particularly after socio‐cognitive training targeting perspective‐taking capacities, this study extended these results by revealing that individual differences in the degree to which participants changed their emotional self‐concept after training was positively related to cortical thickness change in right mPFC extending to dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC). Furthermore, increased self‐related negative emotional word use after training was positively associated with cortical thickness change in left pars orbitalis and bilateral dlPFC.ConclusionsOur findings reveal training‐related structural brain change in regions known to be involved in self‐referential processing and cognitive control, and could indicate a relationship between restructuring of the emotional self‐concept content as well as reappraisal of negative aspects and cortical thickness change. As such, our findings can guide the development of psychological interventions targeted to alter specific facets of the self‐concept.

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Altered processing of self-related emotional stimuli in mindfulness meditators

Cited by 49 publications

References 80 publications

Who am I? Differential effects of three contemplative mental trainings on emotional word use in self-descriptions

Who am I? Differential effects of three contemplative mental trainings on emotional word use in self-descriptions

Psychological risk factors, cognitive-contextual approaches and neural correlates in eating disorders: an integrative review

Change in emotional self‐concept following socio‐cognitive training relates to structural plasticity of the prefrontal cortex

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