Mindfulness-based therapy improves brain functional network reconfiguration efficiency

Mindfulness-based interventions improve cognition and emotion regulation, and this study examined how they change functional brain activity. Using a breath-counting task and resting-state fMRI, the researchers measured how efficiently the brain reconfigures its activity patterns between rest and task states. Elderly participants with sleep difficulties were assigned to either mindfulness-based therapy or a sleep hygiene active control. The mindfulness group showed improved self-reported mindfulness and greater brain functional reconfiguration efficiency in the executive control, default mode, and salience networks compared to the control group. However, these brain changes were not associated with behavioral improvements, suggesting that neuroplasticity from regular mindfulness practice may bring the brain's intrinsic functional configuration closer to a state required for mindful awareness.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Mindfulness-based interventions are showing increasing promise as a treatment for psychological disorders, with improvements in cognition and emotion regulation after intervention. Understanding the changes in functional brain activity and neural plasticity that underlie these benefits from mindfulness interventions is thus of interest in current neuroimaging research. Previous studies have found functional brain changes during resting and task states to be associated with mindfulness both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, particularly in the executive control, default mode and salience networks. However, limited research has combined information from rest and task to study mindfulness-related functional changes in the brain, particularly in the context of intervention studies with active controls. Recent work has found that the reconfiguration efficiency of brain activity patterns between rest and task states is behaviorally relevant in healthy young adults. Thus, we applied this measure to investigate how mindfulness intervention changed functional reconfiguration between rest and a breath-counting task in elderly participants with self-reported sleep difficulties. Improving on previous longitudinal designs, we compared the intervention effects of a mindfulness-based therapy to an active control (sleep hygiene) intervention. We found that mindfulness intervention improved self-reported mindfulness measures and brain functional reconfiguration efficiency in the executive control, default mode and salience networks, though the brain and behavioral changes were not associated with each other. Our findings suggest that neuroplasticity may be induced through regular mindfulness practice, thus bringing the intrinsic functional configuration in participants' brains closer to a state required for mindful awareness.