June Neuroscience Round-Up for Mindful Leaders

For this month’s Round-Up, we examine the latest findings regarding MBSR and structural brain changes, what our brain waves tell us about how we engage with art, the promise of mindfulness-oriented recovery enhancement, remembering selfless experiences, and look at how functional brain connectivities relate to pain and trauma. We have summarized the main ideas and key takeaways below with links to the full articles.

1. Mindfulness Doesn’t Change Our Brains in Ways Once Thought

Findings from the most large-scale and controlled mindfulness study to date indicate that short-term mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) training does not cause structural brain changes, directly contradicting previous findings. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison compared gray matter volume, gray matter density, and cortical thickness before and after eight weeks of MSBR training in over 200 meditation-naive participants. The study design combined datasets from two large, three-arm randomized control trials, which is a much more controlled experimental set-up and sample size than implemented in previous studies. In addition to small sample sizes, prior studies were significantly limited by a lack of active control groups, randomization, and/or reliance on circular analysis.

Key Points:

• Despite hypothesizing that time spent practicing MSBR would correlate to structural brain changes (as observed in previous small-scale studies), the researchers were unable to replicate these findings. They still choose to publish their results, which marks an important step in helping to avoid possible publication bias and misinformation within the field of mindfulness meditation research.
• Future mindfulness research should explore how engagement and efficacy of MSBR differs among individuals, as well as the optimal “dose” (duration and frequency) of mindfulness and meditation practice required to achieve the best results. 

Read the full article here.

2. Brain waves reveal the active nature of engaging with art    

A new study published in the Journal of Cognitive Science reveals that the aesthetic experience of engaging with art involves both actively constructing meaning and being in a state of heightened attention. The research team had participants view different works of art and recorded their brain activity using electroencephalogy (EEG). Two types of brain waves were measured: gamma, which indicates increased higher-order cognitive activity, and alpha, which reflects attention level. Participants were also asked to rate how much each piece of artwork moved them aesthetically.

Key Points:

• When looking at artwork they found appealing, an increase in gamma waves (indicating increased cognitive activity) occurred, but only after a one-second delay. This delay suggests that the increase in brain activity was not simply from passively observing the artwork, but instead from engaging in a process of discovery, interpretation, and meaning-making.
• Alpha waves, a type of brainwave reflecting attention level, increased in response to artwork rated as either highly liked or highly disliked, as compared to more neutrally-rated works. Thus, actively engaging with art seems to require greater attention. 

Read the full article here. 

3. Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement vs Supportive Group Therapy for Co-occurring Opioid Misuse and Chronic Pain in Primary Care

Based on the findings of a long-term randomized clinical trial recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine, mindfulness-oriented recovery enhancement (MORE) is an effective treatment method for simultaneously decreasing opioid misuse and pain. MORE combines principles of mindfulness training, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), and positive psychology principles into integrative group therapy. The study looked at over 250 adult patients who were receiving long-term opioid therapy to treat chronic pain and were misusing their opioid medications. After being randomly assigned to receive MORE treatment (the experimental condition) or general supportive group psychotherapy (the control condition), patients underwent treatment for four years (2016-2020). Measures of opioid misuse, pain severity, and pain-related functional interference, as well as secondary measures of opioid dose, emotional distress, and opioid craving, were all obtained at baseline, after treatment, and at 3, 6, and 9-months of follow-up. 

Key Points:

• After 9 months of follow-up, MORE treatment had significantly reduced pain severity and pain-related functional interference with many patients requiring a significantly smaller daily opioid dose. These effects were larger than the effect size of CBT, which is the current standard treatment for managing pain of this kind.
• Similarly, opioid misuse decreased two-fold in the MORE group as compared to the control group. MORE also decreased emotional distress, depressive symptoms, and opioid cravings in daily life.
• While these findings suggest that MORE is a promising treatment method for simultaneously addressing pain and addictive behavior, which often co-present in clinical settings, future research is needed to examine how MORE compares to other clinically-demonstrated intervention methods like CBT and MBSR.

Read the full article here. 

4. How is it possible to remember selfless experiences?

Both psychoactive substances and meditation can give rise to experiences in which one’s sense of self dissolves and is no longer present, a phenomenon sometimes coined “ego-dissolution”. Philosophers Dr. Raphael Millière from Columbia University New York and Professor Albert Newen from Ruhr-Universität Bochum argue that it is indeed possible for people to remember such selfless experiences based on the Bochum model of memory. According to this model, individuals construct a scenario when they remember it, activating a memory trace containing core details of the experience and then enriching it with background knowledge. During this construction, two self-facets are added: self-involvement (they are involved in the scene) and mineness (the memory is their own). 

Key Points:

• Self-involvement and mineness are separate aspects of memory construction; some patients can remember and describe a scene in which they were involved (self-involvement), but without feeling as though the memory is their own (lacking mineness). 
• This also suggests that these two self-facets can be added during the construction process without necessarily being present in the original memory.
  • Following this logic, a selfless experience can be remembered, as the self-facets lacking in the original experience are simply added during construction.
    

Read the full article here.

5. Understanding Pain and Trauma Symptoms in Veterans From Resting-State Connectivity: Unsupervised Modeling    

This study recently published in Frontiers in Pain Research explored the resting-state brain activity of veterans presenting with both trauma/posttraumatic stress and chronic pain. After obtaining resting state fMRIs (rs-fMRIs) of a heterogeneous sample of veterans with back pain and trauma symptoms, the researchers performed an effective functional connectivity analysis known as Group Iterative Multiple Model Estimation (GIMME) to look at patterns among neural pathways in defined regions of interest relating to pain, reward, and trauma. The model identified three distinct subgroups that differed in terms of functional connectivity between brain regions and multiple psychological measures. 

Key Points:

• The subgroup scoring the lowest on pain and trauma (“low symptom”) was the most highly connected overall, especially in regards to the insula, which acts as a “hub” for connectivity at rest and is believed to help us effectively regulate pain and respond to other emotional and interoceptive needs. Unsurprisingly, the subgroup scoring the highest on pain and trauma (“high symptom”) was characterized by a distinct lack of functional connectivity to the insula.
• The third “middle symptom” subgroup had some overlapping functional connectivities with the “high symptom” subgroup, yet unique connections from the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) to the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). The PCC connectivity may reflect the ability of this subgroup to “mind wander” away and shift their attention away from the pain and trauma.
• Collectively, these findings suggest that despite patients presenting with similar diagnostic and demographic characteristics, it seems probable that there are neurobiologically distinct biotypes (in this case, regarding functional brain connectivities) with different mechanisms of action for managing both pain and trauma. Consequently, effective treatment of co-presenting trauma and chronic pain may require appropriate biotype-specific intervention methods and approaches.

Read the full article here.

Which of these articles did you find the most interesting? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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