Abstract
Background
Mindfulness meditation training interventions have been shown to improve markers of
health, but the underlying neurobiological mechanisms are not known. Building on initial
cross-sectional research showing that mindfulness meditation may increase default
mode network (DMN) resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) with regions important
in top-down executive control (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex [dlPFC]), here we test
whether mindfulness meditation training increases DMN-dlPFC rsFC and whether these
rsFC alterations prospectively explain improvements in interleukin (IL)-6 in a randomized
controlled trial.
Methods
Stressed job-seeking unemployed community adults (n = 35) were randomized to either a 3-day intensive residential mindfulness meditation
or relaxation training program. Participants completed a 5-minute resting-state scan
before and after the intervention program. Participants also provided blood samples
at preintervention and at 4-month follow-up, which were assayed for circulating IL-6,
a biomarker of systemic inflammation.
Results
We tested for alterations in DMN rsFC using a posterior cingulate cortex seed-based
analysis and found that mindfulness meditation training, and not relaxation training,
increased posterior cingulate cortex rsFC with left dlPFC (p < .05, corrected). These pretraining to posttraining alterations in posterior cingulate
cortex-dlPFC rsFC statistically mediated mindfulness meditation training improvements
in IL-6 at 4-month follow-up. Specifically, these alterations in rsFC statistically
explained 30% of the overall mindfulness meditation training effects on IL-6 at follow-up.
Conclusions
These findings provide the first evidence that mindfulness meditation training functionally
couples the DMN with a region known to be important in top-down executive control
at rest (left dlPFC), which, in turn, is associated with improvements in a marker
of inflammatory disease risk.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 29, 2016
Accepted:
January 17,
2016
Received in revised form:
December 31,
2015
Received:
June 18,
2015
Identification
Copyright
© 2016 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Society of Biological Psychiatry All rights reserved.
