Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States.
Norman Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, UCLA, United States.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2021 Mar;125:105114. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2020.105114. Epub 2020 Dec 16.
Mindfulness meditation has been shown to reduce distress and increase well-being among individuals with chronic disease, including breast cancer survivors. However, the neural correlates of these changes and their links with inflammatory biology are not yet known. The present study examined whether a mindfulness meditation intervention was associated with changes in neural responses to threat and reward from pre- to post-intervention, and whether those neural changes were associated with changes in markers of inflammation in breast cancer survivors.
This was a single-arm trial of a standardized, validated 6-week mindfulness meditation intervention. Participants were 20 women who had been diagnosed and treated for early-stage breast cancer. Participants provided peripheral blood samples and underwent a 90-minute neuroimaging scan before and after the intervention, with a focus on tasks known to elicit activity in threat- and reward-related neural regions.
There were significant changes in neural responses to the two tasks of interest from pre to post-intervention (ps < 0.042). Participants showed significant reductions in amygdala activity in response to threatening images and significant increases in ventral striatum activity to rewarding images from pre- to post-intervention. Although changes in amygdala activity were not correlated with inflammatory markers, increases in ventral striatum activity were correlated with decreases in circulating concentrations of the proinflammatory cytokine IL-6 and the inflammatory marker CRP.
These results, while preliminary, suggest that while a mindfulness meditation intervention can alter neural responses to both threat and nonsocial reward-related stimuli, changes in neural reward activity may be more closely linked to changes in circulating levels of inflammation.
正念冥想已被证明可以减轻患有慢性病（包括乳腺癌幸存者）的个体的痛苦并提高幸福感。但是，这些变化的神经相关性及其与炎症生物学的联系尚不清楚。本研究探讨了正念冥想干预是否与干预前后对威胁和奖励的神经反应的变化有关，以及这些神经变化是否与乳腺癌幸存者的炎症标志物的变化有关。
这是一项针对标准化，经过验证的 6 周正念冥想干预的单臂试验。参与者为 20 名被诊断出患有早期乳腺癌并接受治疗的女性。参与者在干预前后提供外周血样本并进行了 90 分钟的神经影像学扫描，重点是已知会引起威胁和奖励相关神经区域活动的任务。
从干预前到干预后，对两个感兴趣的任务的神经反应有明显变化（p<0.042）。与威胁性图像相比，参与者的杏仁核活动明显减少，与奖励性图像相比，腹侧纹状体的活动明显增加。尽管杏仁核活动的变化与炎症标志物无关，但腹侧纹状体活动的增加与循环中促炎性细胞因子 IL-6 和炎症标志物 CRP 的浓度降低有关。
尽管这些结果初步表明，正念冥想干预可以改变对威胁和非社交奖励相关刺激的神经反应，但神经奖励活动的变化可能与循环中炎症水平的变化更密切相关。
