Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience | www.frontiersin.org February 2020 | Volume 12 | Article 29 Temprado et al. Bimanual Switchingat least to trigger the early phase of switching. They also support the hypothesis that inhibition processes are more involved in maintaining the AP pattern and switching to the IP pattern. Finally, age-related changes in switching times seem to be prominently mediated by alterations of inhibition processes.

The present study investigated acute cognitive effects of mindfulness meditation (MM) compared to an active control intervention in meditators (n = 22) and novices (n = 20) using a within-subject design. We analyzed reaction times in a digitized Stroop task at baseline, after a 10-minute MM session with a fundamental breathing exercise, and after a 10-minute attentive listening intervention. Interventions order was randomized and a 10 min delay was respected before testing. Relative to baseline, meditators and novices showed faster reaction times after both interventions, but more so after MM for the congruent and incongruent Stroop task conditions that are associated with attention, inhibition and cognitive flexibility. Although the two interventions showed cognitive effects independent of previous meditation experience, MM appeared to induce larger benefits. Our findings are encouraging and support MM’s potential as a means to enhance cognitive performance on the short-term without the need of any previous practice.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to worldwide restrictive measures, raising concerns about mental health in young adults who were not particularly vulnerable to the virus itself. This study investigated the impact of these restrictions on mental and cognitive health of university students, and tested the efficacy of a brief online mindfulness meditation intervention in countering psychological distress and improving attentional abilities. Ninety-six university students forced into remote learning due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and with no experience in meditation were randomly assigned to either a passive control group (n = 48) or to an experimental group (n = 48) following daily, for 17 days, an online mindfulness intervention (10–20 min per day). Due to drop-out, 38 participants in each group were finally analyzed. Pre- and post-tests assessed participants’ mental health (psychological well-being, depression, anxiety, stress) and attentional abilities. The analysis of baseline data in comparison with normative scores and pre-pandemic statistics confirmed the expected psychological distress, but it did not reveal any attentional deficits in our participants. Pre-post change scores analyses showed a reduction in stress (p = 0.006, ηp2 = 0.10), anxiety (p = 0.002, ηp2 = 0.13), and depression (p = 0.025, ηp2 = 0.07), and an improvement in well-being (p = 0.013, ηp2 = 0.12) in the experimental group, but not in the control group. In both groups, no significant effect was found on attentional abilities. Our results confirmed the psychological vulnerability of higher education students in the midst of the remote learning period during the second COVID-19 lockdown in France, while suggesting preservation of attentional functioning. Although the tested mindfulness intervention did not enhance the attentional abilities in already good performing students, it did promote their mental health. This study offers additional evidence on the feasibility and efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions in students during psychologically straining periods, like the COVID-19 pandemic.