Neurocognitive correlates of the effects of yoga meditation practice on emotion and cognition: a pilot study

Brett E Froeliger, Eric L Garland, Leslie A Modlin, F Joseph McClernon, Brett E Froeliger, Eric L Garland, Leslie A Modlin, F Joseph McClernon

Abstract

Mindfulness meditation involves attending to emotions without cognitive fixation of emotional experience. Over time, this practice is held to promote alterations in trait affectivity and attentional control with resultant effects on well-being and cognition. However, relatively little is known regarding the neural substrates of meditation effects on emotion and cognition. The present study investigated the neurocognitive correlates of emotion interference on cognition in Yoga practitioners and a matched control group (CG) underwent fMRI while performing an event-related affective Stroop task. The task includes image viewing trials and Stroop trials bracketed by neutral or negative emotional distractors. During image viewing trials, Yoga practitioners exhibited less reactivity in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) to negative as compared to neutral images; whereas the CG had the opposite pattern. A main effect of valence (negative > neutral) was observed in limbic regions (e.g., amygdala), of which the magnitude was inversely related to dlPFC activation. Exploratory analyses revealed that the magnitude of amygdala activation predicted decreased self-reported positive affect in the CG, but not among Yoga practitioners. During Stroop trials, Yoga practitioners had greater activation in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) during Stroop trials when negative, compared to neutral, emotional distractor were presented; the CG exhibited the opposite pattern. Taken together, these data suggest that though Yoga practitioners exhibit limbic reactivity to negative emotional stimuli, such reactivity does not have downstream effects on later mood state. This uncoupling of viewing negative emotional images and affect among Yoga practitioners may be occasioned by their selective implementation of frontal executive-dependent strategies to reduce emotional interference during competing cognitive demands and not during emotional processing per se.

Keywords: emotion-cognition; fMRI; mindfulness.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Affective Stroop task.
Figure 2
Figure 2
fMRI contrast of the Group × Valence interaction on BOLD response during viewing emotional images. Among the control group, activation was greater during negative versus neutral images and as compared to YMP in right middle frontal gyrus (MFG) (x = 28, y = 28, z = 40).
Figure 3
Figure 3
fMRI contrast of the Group × Distractor Valence interaction on Stroop-BOLD response. Among Yoga Meditation Practitioners (YMP), Stroop-BOLD was greater during negative, as compared to neutral Stroop-BOLD was greater during negative, as compared to neutral distractor trials in left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) [x = −38, y = 40, z = −2], whereas the opposite pattern was observed among the Control Group (CG).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Plot of interaction between meditation experience and BOLD response in the amygdala to viewing negative emotional images on change in positive affect during participation in the Affective Stroop taskab.
Figure A1
Figure A1
fMRI contrast of the main effect of valence on viewing emotional images. BOLD response was greater during negative, as compared to neutral emotional images in left Amygdala [x = −24, y = −4, z = −14] and right Insula [x = 38, y = −16, z = 14] p < 0.05 (cluster corrected).

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