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Examining Neural Correlates of Mindfulness and Emotion
Regulation in Older Adults: an fMRI Study
Monika WanisClinical Neuroscience LabThe Ohio State University
Ruchika Shaurya Prakash, Ph.D.
Aging Paradox Older adults show
significant decline in cognitive control abilities (Prakash et al., 2012)
High risk of cognitive decline Poor quality of life (Kramer & Erickson, 2007)
Older adults show preservation of emotion processing abilities (Charles & Carstensen,2007; Mather, 2012)
(Park et al., 2010)
Aging Paradox Aging associated with more positive overall emotional
well-being and greater emotional stability (Carstensen et al., 2011)
Older adults report lower levels of negative emotion and higher levels of positive emotion (Stawski et al., 2008)
Rheault & McGeeney, 2011 Carstensen et al., 2011
Socioemotional Selectivity Theory
(SST) As perceived time left in life shrinks with age, people are more motivated to regulate emotions (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999)
Carstensen, 1995
What is emotion regulation?o All conscious and unconscious strategies used to increase,
maintain, or decrease one or more components of an emotional response
Antecedent-focused strategies o Situation selectiono Situation modificationo Attention deploymento Cognitive change
Response-focused strategies
o Response modulation
Types of Emotion Regulation
Gross, 1998
Cognitive Emotion Reappraisal
What is cognitive emotional reappraisal? o Altering one’s interpretation of the meaning of a situation so
as to change its emotional impact (Gross, 1998)
Effective and associated with more positive emotion, less negative emotion and greater levels of well-being (Gross & John, 2003)
Cognitive Emotion Reappraisal: Young Adults
Emotion reappraisal consistently reduces subjective experience of negative emotion
Emotional reappraisal recruits regions of the prefrontal cortex
Research on the effects of emotion reappraisal on the elderly is limited
Ochsner et al., 2002; 2004
Emotion Regulation: Older Adults
Self-report data has suggested that older adults have lower levels of difficulty in emotion regulation overall compared to young (Orgeta, 2009)
Regulating negative emotions has been shown to be less costly in older adults in their cognitive performance than younger adults (Scheibe & Blanchard-Fields, 2009)
Relative to younger adults, older adults are less successful using reappraisal to decrease unpleasant emotion (Opitz et al., 2010)
Mindfulness What is Mindfulness?
o Mindfulness training vs. dispositional mindfulness o Purposeful, non-judgemental, attentional awareness to
present moment experiences (Kabat-Zinn, 1990)
Evidence for Dispositional Mindfulnesso Enhances quality of life and brain function connectivity (Urry et
al., 2006)o Reduces anxiety, depression, pain and emotion based
disorders (Grossman et al., 2004)o Reduction in emotional reactivity and better regulation of
emotions (Creswell et al., 2007)o Those with higher levels of trait mindfulness are better
able to regulate their emotions through emotion reappraisal (Modinos, Ormel, & Aleman, 2009)
Mindfulness and Emotion Control
Mindfulness associated with enhanced controlled, top-down processing in emotional contexts, older adults show an advantage
Affect-Labeling Task
Creswell et al., 2007
Mindfulness and Emotion Control
Higher mindfulness disposition was associated with:o Decreased amygdala
activation o Increased PFC recruitment
Areas of lateral PFC show greatest structural and functional decline in aging (Raz et al., 2004)
Higher levels of dispositional mindfulness may result in enhanced cognitive control and better cognitive emotion reappraisal
Prakash et al., 2012
Methods Cross-sectional analysis
o Older Adults N = 50, Younger Adults N = 50
Dispositional Mindfulness Measure
Mindful Attention and Awareness Scale (MAAS) (Brown & Ryan, 2003)o 15-item questionnaire designed to capture attention and
awareness in daily lifeo Items rated on a six-point likert scale: 1 = almost
always; 6 = almost never
Example items:o “I perceive my feelings and emotions without having to react to
them”o “When I do things, my mind wanders off and I’m easily
distracted”
Higher scores reflect higher levels of mindfulness disposition
Emotion Regulation Training Session
Focus on the picture while thinking of something to tell yourself that will help you feel less negative towards it
For every picture following the regulate cue you should ask yourself, “What can I tell myself in order to feel less distressed or negative?”
Example: Viewing a picture of someone who is illo It will soon be resolved, help is on the wayo Maybe it’s not as painful as it lookso Maybe they are giving him/her drugs so they aren’t in paino Maybe this is just for TV so it’s not real
Actively try to convince yourself and really believe your reappraisal so you decrease how negative you feel as much as possible
Cognitive Emotion Reappraisal Paradigm
Oschner et al., 2002
Specific Aims Using a cross-sectional design with young and older
adults:
o Age related differences in Cognitive Emotion Reappraisal
o Neural correlates of Cognitive Emotion Reappraisal in older and young adults
o Age-related differences in Dispositional Mindfulness
o Association between Mindfulness Disposition and Cognitive Reappraisal Success
o Neural association between Mindfulness Disposition and neural correlates of Cognitive Emotion Reappraisal
Demographics
Younger Adults
Demographic n = 50
Mean (SD) or Percent
Age 23.54 (3.30)
Gender 64% Female
Education 16.30 (2.29)
Older Adults
Demographic n = 50
Mean (SD) or Percent
Age 65.34 (4.80)
Gender 64% Female
Education 17.02 (2.35)
Hypotheses 1 Specific Aim: Determine whether older adults exhibit a
positivity bias for images compared to young adults
Hypothesis 1: Older adults will rate images as more positive than young adults
Analyses: Repeated-Measures ANOVA
Cognitive Emotion Reappraisal
Behavioral Resultso Main effect of
conditiono Main effect of
age-group• Neutral
Observeo No significant
age X condition interaction
Hypothesis 2 Specific Aim: Determine whether older adults show significant
differences in cortical activation patterns of cognitive control regions during cognitive reappraisal compared to young adults
Hypothesis 2: o A. Older adults will exhibit enhanced prefrontal cortex (PFC)
recruitment during Affect Regulate > Affect Observe condition compared to young adults
o B. Older adults will exhibit reduced amygdala reactivity in during the Affect Regulate > Affect Observe condition compared to young adults
Analyses: FSL 5.0.1: FEAT (fMRI Expert Analysis Tool), thresholded at voxelwise z-score of 1.65, corrected for multiple comparisons at p-value of 0.05
Affect Regulate > Affect Observe Condition
Old n = 19, Young n = 20, Young + Old n = 40
Young Old + Young Old
Hypothesis 3 Specific Aim: Determine if older adults have higher
levels of dispositional mindfulness compared to young adults
Hypothesis 3: Older adults will report having higher levels of dispositional mindfulness than young adults
Analyses: Independent-Samples T Test
Dispositional Mindfulness
Outlier: CADE 119o Replaced score with a 2.5 Standard Deviation
There is a significant difference between older and young adults in MAAS as a measure of dispositional mindfulnesso OA more positive
Hypothesis 4 Specific Aim: Determine if older and young adults with
higher levels of dispositional mindfulness show greater success in reappraisal of negative emotion
Hypothesis 4: Older and young adults with higher levels of dispositional mindfulness will have greater levels of cognitive reappraisal success
Analyses: Pearson’s and Spearman’s Bivariate Correlation
Cognitive Reappraisal Success
Cognitive Reappraisal Success = Affect Regulate – Affect Observe
o Insignificant relationship between dispositional mindfulness and cognitive reappraisal success in older adults
o Significant, negative relationship between dispositional mindfulness and cognitive reappraisal success
Hypothesis 5 Specific Aim: Determine whether older adults with higher levels of
dispositional mindfulness show significant differences in cortical activation patterns of cognitive control regions during cognitive reappraisal compared to young adults with higher levels of dispositional mindfulness
Hypothesis 5: o A. Older adults with higher levels of dispositional mindfulness will exhibit
enhanced PFC recruitment during Affect Regulate > Affect Observe condition compared to young adults with higher levels of dispositional mindfulness
o B. Older adults with higher levels of dispositional mindfulness will exhibit reduced amygdala reactivity during the Affect Regulate > Affect Observe condition compared to young adults with higher levels of dispositional mindfulness
Analyses: FSL 5.0.1: FEAT, thresholded at voxelwise z-score of 1.65, corrected for multiple comparisons at p-value of 0.05
Affect Observe Condition
Old MAAS – No significant cluster survived thresholding
Young MAAS
Old MAAS + Young MAAS
Young n = 20, Young + Old n = 40
Affect Regulate Condition
Old MAAS
Young MAAS
Old MAAS + Young MAAS
Old n = 19, Young n = 20, Young + Old n = 40
Affect Regulate > Affect Observe Condition
Old MAAS
Young MAAS
Old MAAS + Young MAAS
Old n = 19, Young n = 20, Young + Old n = 40
Discussion Behavioral association between Mindfulness Disposition
and Cognitive Emotion Reappraisalo Older adults seem to have a more positive bias when
subjectively rating neutral images
Neural correlates of Cognitive Emotion Reappraisal in older and young adultso Older and younger adults have enhanced PFC recruitment
which is indicative of successful emotion regulation, the insular cortex activation is indicative of bottom-up, emotional reactivity
Age-related differences in Dispositional Mindfulness o Older adults report significantly higher levels of dispositional
mindfulness than younger adults
Discussion Association between Mindfulness Disposition and
Cognitive Reappraisal Successo Significant negative correlation between dispositional
mindfulness and successful cognitive reappraisal of negative emotions in younger adults
o Would FFMQ be better to correlate with cognitive reappraisal success?
Neural correlates between Mindfulness Disposition and Cognitive Emotion Reappraisalo Older and younger adults with higher levels of dispositional
mindfulness display significant functioning of cortical brain regions associated with higher-level, top-down cognitive control and attention
o This is evidence for increased emotion regulation abilities via mindfulness
Future Directions and Implications
Collect 1 last older adult!
Rerun correlation between mindfulness disposition and cognitive reappraisal success using FFMQ?
Reanalyze data to determine neural correlates of mindfulness disposition and cognitive reappraisal success
Mindfulness represents a promising holistic approach to enhancing basic emotion-cognition processes
Future work is needed to develop a more refined understanding of cognitive, affective, and neural processes in aging and their potential malleability to neuroplasticity-based approaches like mindfulness
Ultimately, establish a new, integrative approach to inspire future research and clinical practice in the aging field
AcknowledgementsThank you for all of your help, comments and suggestions!It is much appreciated!
Dr. Ruchika Shaurya Prakash
The Clinical Neuroscience Laboratoryo Brittney Schirdao Alisha Jansseno Stephanie Fountain o Mariam Hussaino Liat Zabludovskyo Undergraduate RAs
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