Dispositional mindfulness and depressive symptomatology: Correlations with limbic and self-referential neural activity during rest.

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.

Study at a glance

Abstract

To better understand the relationship between mindfulness and depression, we studied normal young adults (n = 27) who completed measures of dispositional mindfulness and depressive symptomatology, which were then correlated with (a) rest: resting neural activity during passive viewing of a fixation cross, relative to a simple goal-directed task (shape-matching); and (b) reactivity: neural reactivity during viewing of negative emotional faces, relative to the same shape-matching task. Dispositional mindfulness was negatively correlated with resting activity in self-referential processing areas, whereas depressive symptomatology was positively correlated with resting activity in similar areas. In addition, dispositional mindfulness was negatively correlated with resting activity in the amygdala, bilaterally, whereas depressive symptomatology was positively correlated with activity in the right amygdala. Similarly, when viewing emotional faces, amygdala reactivity was positively correlated with depressive symptomatology and negatively correlated with dispositional mindfulness, an effect that was largely attributable to differences in resting activity. These findings indicate that mindfulness is associated with intrinsic neural activity and that changes in resting amygdala activity could be a potential mechanism by which mindfulness-based depression treatments elicit therapeutic improvement.