Mindfulness training disrupts Pavlovian conditioning

Effects of brief mindfulness training on smoking cue-reactivity in tobacco use disorder: Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND

The prevalence of Tobacco Use Disorder (TUD) represents a significant and pressing global public health concern, with far-reaching and deleterious consequences for individuals, communities, and healthcare systems. The craving caused by smoking cue is an important trigger for relapse, fundamentally hindering the cessation of cigarette smoking. Mindfulness interventions focusing on cue-reactivity was effective for the treatment of related dependence. Brief mindfulness training (BMT) meets the short-term needs for intervention but the effects still need to be examined. The objective of the present study is to investigate the impact of BMT intervention on smoking cue-reactivity among Chinese college students with TUD, to uncover the dynamic models of brain function involved in this process.

METHOD

A randomized control trial (RCT) based on electroencephalography (EEG) was designed. We aim to recruit 90 participants and randomly assign to the BMT and control group (CON) with 1:1 ratio. A brief mindfulness training will be administered to experimental group. After the intervention, data collection will be conducted in the follow-up stage with 5 timepoints of assessments. EEG data will be recorded during the smoking cue-reactivity task and 'STOP' brief mindfulness task. The primary outcomes include subjective reports of smoking craving, changes in EEG indicators, and mindfulness measures. The secondary outcomes will be daily smoking behaviours, affect and impulsivity, as well as indicators reflecting correlation between mindfulness and smoking cue-reactivity. To evaluate the impact of mindfulness training, a series of linear mixed-effects models will be employed. Specifically, within-group effects will be examined by analysing the longitudinal data. Additionally, the effect size for all statistical measurements will be reported, offering a comprehensive view of the observed effects.

DISCUSSION

The current study aims to assess the impact of brief mindfulness-based intervention on smoking cue-reactivity in TUD. It also expected to enhance our understanding of the underlying processes involved in brain function and explore potential EEG biomarkers at multiple time points.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

Trial registration number: ChiCTR2300069363, registered on 14 March 2023. Protocol Version 1.0., 10 April 2023.

The effect of brief mindfulness training on the micro-structure of human free-operant responding: Mindfulness affects stimulus-driven responding

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

The current study examines the extent to which mindfulness impacts on operant conditioning processes, and explores the suggestion that mindfulness training serves to make humans more sensitive to the current reinforcement contingencies with which they are presented. In particular, the effect of mindfulness on the micro-structure of human schedule performance was explored. It was expected that mindfulness might impact bout-initiation responding to a greater degree than within-bout responding, premised on the assumption that bout-initiation responses are habitual and not under conscious control, but within-bout responses are goal-directed and conscious.

METHODS

Nonclinical participants experienced one of three brief (15min) interventions: focused attention breathing exercise (mindfulness), an unfocused attention breathing exercises, or no intervention. They then responded on a multiple random ratio (RR) random interval (RI) schedule.

RESULTS

In the no intervention and unfocused attention groups, overall and within-bout response rates were higher on the RR than the RI schedule, but bout-initiation rates were the same on the two schedules. However, for the mindfulness groups all forms of responding were higher for the RR than the RI schedule. Previous work has noted that habitual, and/or unconscious or fringe-conscious events, are impacted by mindfulness training.

LIMITATIONS

A nonclinical sample may limit generality.

CONCLUSIONS

The current pattern of results suggests that this is also true in schedule-controlled performance, and offers an insight into the manner in which mindfulness alongside conditioning-based interventions, to bring all responses under conscious control.

Beyond the veil of duality-topographic reorganization model of meditation

Meditation can exert a profound impact on our mental life, with proficient practitioners often reporting an experience free of boundaries between a separate self and the environment, suggesting an explicit experience of "nondual awareness." What are the neural correlates of such experiences and how do they relate to the idea of nondual awareness itself? In order to unravel the effects that meditation has on the brain's spatial topography, we review functional magnetic resonance imaging brain findings from studies specific to an array of meditation types and meditator experience levels. We also review findings from studies that directly probe the interaction between meditation and the experience of the self. The main results are (i) decreased posterior default mode network (DMN) activity, (ii) increased central executive network (CEN) activity, (iii) decreased connectivity within posterior DMN as well as between posterior and anterior DMN, (iv) increased connectivity within the anterior DMN and CEN, and (v) significantly impacted connectivity between the DMN and CEN (likely a nonlinear phenomenon). Together, these suggest a profound organizational shift of the brain's spatial topography in advanced meditators-we therefore propose a topographic reorganization model of meditation (TRoM). One core component of the TRoM is that the topographic reorganization of DMN and CEN is related to a decrease in the mental-self-processing along with a synchronization with the more nondual layers of self-processing, notably interoceptive and exteroceptive-self-processing. This reorganization of the functionality of both brain and self-processing can result in the explicit experience of nondual awareness. In conclusion, this review provides insight into the profound neural effects of advanced meditation and proposes a result-driven unifying model (TRoM) aimed at identifying the inextricably tied objective (neural) and subjective (experiential) effects of meditation.

From many to (n)one: Meditation and the plasticity of the predictive mind

How profoundly can humans change their own minds? In this paper we offer a unifying account of deconstructive meditation under the predictive processing view. We start from simple axioms. First, the brain makes predictions based on past experience, both phylogenetic and ontogenetic. Second, deconstructive meditation brings one closer to the here and now by disengaging anticipatory processes. We propose that practicing meditation therefore gradually reduces counterfactual temporally deep cognition, until all conceptual processing falls away, unveiling a state of pure awareness. Our account also places three main styles of meditation (focused attention, open monitoring, and non-dual) on a single continuum, where each technique relinquishes increasingly engrained habits of prediction, including the predicted self. This deconstruction can also permit certain insights by making the above processes available to introspection. Our framework is consistent with the state of empirical and (neuro)phenomenological evidence and illuminates the top-down plasticity of the predictive mind. Experimental rigor, neurophenomenology, and no-report paradigms are needed to further understanding of how meditation affects predictive processing and the self.

Targeting automatic processes to reduce unhealthy behaviours: a process framework

While previous frameworks to address health behaviours through targeting underlying automatic processes have stimulated an improved understanding of related interventions, deciding between intervention strategies often remains essentially arbitrary and atheoretical. Making considered decisions has likely been hampered by the lack of a framework that guides the selection of different intervention strategies targeting automatic processes to reduce unhealthy behaviours. We propose a process framework to fulfil this need, building upon the process model of emotion regulation. This framework differentiates types of intervention strategies along the timeline of the unfolding automatic response, distinguishing between three broad classes of intervention strategies - direct antecedent, indirect antecedent, and response-focused. Antecedent-focused strategies aim to prevent the exposure to or activation of automatic responses directly through the avoidance of unwanted stimulus-response associations (i.e., situation modification or situation-specific response selection), or indirectly through automatising self-control (i.e., attentional deployment or cognitive change). Response-focused strategies aim to directly downregulate automatic unwanted responses (i.e., response modulation). Three main working hypotheses derived from this process framework provide practical guidance for selecting interventions, but await direct testing in future studies.