People who are naturally more mindful show distinct brain activity when labeling emotional facial expressions. During an affect labeling task, higher dispositional mindfulness was linked to greater activation in prefrontal cortical regions and reduced activity in the amygdala. Strong negative correlations between prefrontal cortex and right amygdala responses appeared only in those with high mindfulness, suggesting that mindful individuals may better regulate negative emotions through cognitive control. This pattern points to a possible neurocognitive mechanism—enhanced prefrontal regulation of affect via labeling—that could explain how mindfulness meditation reduces negative affect and improves health.
Among 27 normal young adults, dispositional mindfulness was negatively correlated with resting neural activity in self-referential processing areas and in the amygdala bilaterally, whereas depressive symptomatology was positively correlated with resting activity in similar areas, including the right amygdala. During viewing of negative emotional faces, amygdala reactivity was positively correlated with depressive symptoms and negatively correlated with mindfulness, an effect largely attributable to differences in resting activity. These findings suggest that mindfulness is linked to intrinsic neural activity and that changes in resting amygdala activity may be a mechanism through which mindfulness-based depression treatments produce therapeutic improvement.
Intranasal oxytocin increased self-reported spirituality in midlife men, an effect that persisted for at least a week. The hormone also boosted positive emotions during meditation, both explicitly and implicitly. The effect was moderated by genetic variations in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR rs53576) and CD38 (rs6449182 and rs3796863). These findings provide experimental evidence that the oxytocin system, known for social bonding, may also support spirituality.
A 3-day intensive mindfulness meditation training, compared with relaxation training, increased resting-state functional connectivity between the default mode network and the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in stressed unemployed adults. These brain connectivity changes statistically explained 30% of the mindfulness meditation training effects on reducing interleukin-6, a marker of systemic inflammation, at 4-month follow-up. The findings suggest that mindfulness meditation may improve inflammatory health markers by strengthening brain networks involved in executive control.