School of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2019 Apr;19(2):268-282. doi: 10.3758/s13415-018-00665-0.
Focused attention meditation (FAM) practices are cognitive control exercises where meditators learn to maintain focus and attention in the face of distracting stimuli. Previous studies have shown that FAM is both activating and causing plastic changes to the mesolimbic dopamine system and some of its target structures, particularly the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and striatum. Feedback-based learning also depends on these systems and is known to be modulated by tonic dopamine levels. Capitalizing on previous findings that FAM practices seem to cause dopamine release, the present study shows that FAM experience predicts learning from negative feedback on a probabilistic selection task. Furthermore, meditators exhibited attenuated feedback-related negativity (FRN) as compared with nonmeditators and this effect scales with meditation experience. Given that reinforcement learning and FRN are modulated by dopamine levels, a possible explanation for our findings is that FAM practice causes persistent increases in tonic dopamine levels which scale with amount of practice, thus altering feedback processing.
专注冥想（FAM）练习是一种认知控制练习，冥想者在面对分心刺激时学会保持专注和注意力。先前的研究表明，FAM 既可以激活中脑边缘多巴胺系统及其一些靶结构，特别是前扣带皮层（ACC）和纹状体，也可以引起其可塑性变化。基于反馈的学习也依赖于这些系统，并且已知其受多巴胺水平的调节。利用先前的研究结果，即 FAM 练习似乎会导致多巴胺的释放，本研究表明 FAM 体验可以预测在概率选择任务中从负面反馈中学习。此外，与非冥想者相比，冥想者的反馈相关负波（FRN）减弱，并且这种效应与冥想经验成正比。鉴于强化学习和 FRN 受多巴胺水平的调节，我们发现的一个可能解释是 FAM 练习导致持续增加的基础多巴胺水平，这种水平与练习量成正比，从而改变了反馈处理。
