App-Based Mindfulness Meditation Training and an Audiobook Intervention Reduce Symptom Severity but Do Not Modify Backward Inhibition in Adolescent Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Evidence from an EEG Study
Sarah Rempel, Lea L. Backhausen, Maria McDonald, Veit Roessner, Nora C. Vetter, Christian Beste, Nicole Wolff
Journal of Clinical Medicine March 24, 2023 DOI: 10.3390/jcm12072486 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Randomized controlled trial Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 58 |
| Population | Adolescents aged 10-19 years with OCD |
| Intervention | App-based mindfulness meditation training |
| Duration | 8-week intervention |
| Measures | CY-BOCS, reaction times, mean accuracy, EEG (P1, N1, N2, P3) |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key findings | Both app-based mindfulness meditation and audiobook listening reduced OCD symptom severity (67% reliable change), with no significant difference between groups. The backward inhibition effect did not change after mindfulness training, and no group differences emerged in behavioral or EEG measures. Exploratory analyses found the BI-effect decreased in non-responders regardless of group. |
Abstract
(1)
Background: 1–2% of children and adolescents are affected by Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). The rigid, repetitive features of OCD and an assumed disability to inhibit recent mental representations are assumed to have led to a paradoxical advantage in that the Backward Inhibition (BI) effect was recently found to be lower in adolescents with OCD as compared to healthy controls. It was hypothesized that app-based mindfulness meditation training could reduce the disability to inhibit recent mental representations and thus increase the BI-effect by adapting cognitive flexibility and inhibition abilities according to healthy controls. (2)
Methods: 58 adolescents (10–19 years) with OCD were included in the final sample of this interviewer-blind, randomized controlled study. Participants were allocated to an intervention group (app-based mindfulness meditation training) or an (active) control group (app-based audiobook) for eight weeks. Symptom (CY-BOCS), behavioral (reaction times and mean accuracy), and neurophysiological changes (in EEG) of the BI-effect were analyzed in a pre-post design. (3)
Results: The intervention and the control group showed an intervention effect (Reliable Change Index: 67%) with a significant symptom reduction. Contrary to the hypothesis, the BI-effect did not differ between pre vs. post app-based mindfulness meditation training. In addition, as expected the audiobook application showed no effects. Thus, we observed no intervention-specific differences with respect to behavioral (reaction times and mean accuracy) or with respect to neurophysiological (perceptual [P1], attentional [N1], conflict monitoring [N2] or updating and response selection [P3]) processes. However, in an exploratory approach, we revealed that the BI-effect decreased in participants who did not benefit from using an app, regardless of group. (4)
Conclusions: Both listening to an app-based mindfulness meditation training and to an audiobook reduce symptom severity in adolescent OCD as measured by the CY-BOCS; however, they have no specific effect on BI. The extent of the baseline BI-effect might be considered as an intra-individual component to predict the benefit of both mindfulness meditation training and listening to an audiobook.