Neural Correlates of Dispositional Mindfulness During Affect Labeling

By J. D. Creswell, Baldwin M. Way, Naomi I. Eisenberger, Matthew D. Lieberman. Psychosomatic Medicine, 2007

854 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Objective: Mindfulness is a process whereby one is aware and receptive to present moment experiences. Although mindfulness-enhancing interventions reduce pathological mental and physical health symptoms across a wide variety of conditions and diseases, the mechanisms underlying these effects remain unknown. Converging evidence from the mindfulness and neuroscience literature suggests that labeling affect may be one mechanism for these effects. Methods: Participants (n = 27) indicated trait levels of mindfulness and then completed an affect labeling task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. The labeling task consisted of matching facial expressions to appropriate affect words (affect labeling) or to gender-appropriate names (gender labeling control task). Results: After controlling for multiple individual difference measures, dispositional mindfulness was associated with greater widespread prefrontal cortical activation, and reduced bilateral amygdala activity during affect labeling, compared with the gender labeling control task. Further, strong negative associations were found between areas of prefrontal cortex and right amygdala responses in participants high in mindfulness but not in participants low in mindfulness. Conclusions: The present findings with a dispositional measure of mindfulness suggest one potential neurocognitive mechanism for understanding how mindfulness meditation interventions reduce negative affect and improve health outcomes, showing that mindfulness is associated with enhanced prefrontal cortical regulation of affect through labeling of negative affective stimuli. fMRI = functional magnetic resonance imaging; PFC = prefrontal cortex; VLPFC = ventrolateral prefrontal cortex; VMPFC = ventromedial prefrontal cortex; MPFC = medial prefrontal cortex; DLPFC = dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental and Educational Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9038050ebfd60667e4b7d40ca55a09aa7e15c4d0

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Clinical Psychology

In Cognitive Neuroscience

In Developmental and Educational Psychology

Citations in the corpus

A Model of Mindful Parenting: Implications for Parent–Child Relationships and Prevention Research (2009, background): “…2003), less anxiety and depression (Baer et al. 2006, 2008; Brown and Ryan 2003), greater relationship satisfaction and less relationship stress (Barnes et al. 2007), and specific profiles of brain activity associated with greater emotion regulation during affect labeling (Creswell et al. 2007).”
The underlying anatomical correlates of long-term meditation: Larger hippocampal and frontal volumes of gray matter (2009, background): “The authors reported that dispositional mindfulness was positively associated with activation in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (peak x; y; z: 38; 44; 0 [Creswell et al., 2007]).”
A multi-method examination of the effects of mindfulness on stress attribution, coping, and emotional well-being (2009, background): “This extant research has indicated that mindfulness predicts lower emotional reactivity to threatening situations (e.g., Arch & Craske, 2006; Creswell et al., 2007) and predicts quicker recovery from unpleasant emotional states such as sadness (Broderick, 2005).”
Mindfulness training and the cultivation of secure, satisfying couple relationships. (2013, neutral): “The simple process of labeling a feeling can help reduce amygdala activation (Creswell et al., 2007; Lieberman et al., 2007).”
Impact of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Training on Intrinsic Brain Connectivity (2011, background): “, 2010) and during affect labeling (Creswell et al., 2007).”
Openness to Experience and stress regulation (2009, background): “Interestingly, both ‘‘trait” mindfulness in the context of affect labeling ( Creswell, Way, Eisenberger, & Lieberman, 2007 ) and the practice of meditation by skilled practitioners (Holzel et al., 2007) are associated with activation of prefrontal cortex in fMRI studies.”
Mindfulness, Work Climate, and Psychological Need Satisfaction in Employee Well-being (2015, background): “Indeed, Creswell et al. (2007) used functional neuroimaging and reported that individuals low in mindfulness, when labeling thoughts and emotions as either positive or negative, exhibit activation in the limbic system.”
Impact of mindfulness on the neural responses to emotional pictures in experienced and beginner meditators (2011, background): “Interestingly, mindfulness was shown to be associated with increased MPFC/LPFC activation and reduced amygdalar activation during affect labeling, which is commonly employed during meditation in order to identify emotional states (Creswell et al., 2007).”