Mindfulness based cognitive therapy may improve emotional processing in bipolar disorder: pilot ERP and HRV study

Abstract

Emotional processing in bipolar disorder (BD) is impaired. We aimed to measure the effects of mindfulness based cognitive-behavioral therapy (MBCT) in BD on emotional processing, as measured by event related potentials (ERP) and by heart rate variability (HRV). ERP and HRV were recorded during the completion of a visual matching task, which included object matching, affect matching, and affect labeling. Individuals with BD (n = 12) were compared with controls (n = 9) to obtain baseline data prior to the individuals with BD undergoing an 8-week MBCT intervention. ERP and HRV recording was repeated after the MBCT intervention in BD. Participants with BD had exaggerated ERP N170 amplitude and increased HRV HF peak compared to controls, particularly during the affect matching condition. After an 8-week MBCT intervention, participants with BD showed attenuation of ERP N170 amplitude and reduced HRV HF peak. Our findings support findings from the literature emphasizing that emotional processing in BD is altered, and suggesting that MBCT may improve emotional processing in BD.

Towards a refined mindfulness model related to consciousness and based on ERP

“…Our review found that dispositional mindfulness was negatively associated with P600 amplitude (Dorjee, Lally, Darrall-Rew, & Thierry, 2015), and a MM intervention was found to be associated with a decrease in N170 amplitude, at least in a clinical population with bipolar disorder (Howells et al, 2014).…”

“…ERP evidence shows that the intensity of the emotional response is: (i) negatively correlated with dispositional mindfulness (Brown et al, 2013;Dorjee et al, 2015;Lin et al, 2016), (ii) lower in experienced than in naïve meditators (Sobolewski et al, 2011), and (iii) decreases after MM interventions both in healthy (Lin et al, 2016) and clinical populations (Howells et al, 2014). This negative effect of mindfulness on emotional response supports the notion of extinction in mindful functioning.…”

“…As four articles were based on overlapping samples (Howells, Ives-Deliperi, Horn, & Stein, 2012;Howells, Laurie Rauch, Ives-Deliperi, Horn, & Stein, 2014;Smart & Segalowitz, 2017;Smart, Segalowitz, Mulligan, Koudys, & Gawryluk, 2016), our dataset of 29 articles drew upon results from 27 independent samples (n = 1185; age = 17-80). Participants were either healthy subjects (22 independent samples, n = 954; age = 17-80) or patients (five independent samples, n = 231; age = 18-80).…”

Affect lability predicts occurrence of suicidal ideation in bipolar patients: a two‐year prospective study

“…Mindfulness‐based cognitive therapy (MCBT) has been shown to be effective in reducing risk for relapse and recurrence in unipolar depression . MBCT has also shown promising results for affect regulation in bipolar patients . MBCT aims at helping patients to improve recognition and disengagement from maladaptive patterns of thinking.…”

An explorative study on coping flexibility with behavioral approach system-activating stimuli: A comparison of people with and without bipolar disorder

“…Recently, mindfulness has been shown to be beneficial to the emotion regulation in goal striving among people with BD (Gilbert and Gruber, 2014;Murray et al, 2015). The application of mindfulness-based interventions may also improve emotional processing on BD (Howells et al, 2014).…”