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