Mindful attention promotes control of brain network dynamics for self-regulation and discontinues the past from the present

Abstract

Mindful attention is characterized by acknowledging the present experience as a transient mental event. Early stages of mindfulness practice may require greater neural effort for later efficiency. Early effort may self-regulate behavior and focalize the present, but this understanding lacks a computational explanation. Here we used network control theory as a model of how external control inputs—operationalizing effort—distribute changes in neural activity evoked during mindful attention across the white matter network. We hypothesized that individuals with greater network controllability, thereby efficiently distributing control inputs, effectively self-regulate behavior. We further hypothesized that brain regions that utilize greater control input exhibit shorter intrinsic timescales of neural activity. Shorter timescales characterize quickly discontinuing past processing to focalize the present. We tested these hypotheses in a randomized controlled study that primed participants to either mindfully respond or naturally react to alcohol cues during fMRI and administered text reminders and measurements of alcohol consumption during 4 wk postscan. We found that participants with greater network controllability moderated alcohol consumption. Mindful regulation of alcohol cues, compared to one’s own natural reactions, reduced craving, but craving did not differ from the baseline group. Mindful regulation of alcohol cues, compared to the natural reactions of the baseline group, involved more-effortful control of neural dynamics across cognitive control and attention subnetworks. This effort persisted in the natural reactions of the mindful group compared to the baseline group. More-effortful neural states had shorter timescales than less effortful states, offering an explanation for how mindful attention promotes being present.

Inflammation and emotional regulation: a narrative review of evidence and mechanisms in emotional dysregulation disorders

“…Interestingly, one recent study also proved that mindfulness could positively impact the FC of BD patients (407). Mindfulness has additionally been suggested to modulate saliency and SMN processing (408), which are part of ER processing (269) and may be disrupted in EDD (254).…”

Towards customer-centric sustainability: how mindful advertising influences mindful consumption behaviour

“…Functional MRI is the tool recommended for such investigations. Network control theory application to mindful attention using functional MRI is one such attempt carried out recently (Zhou et al , 2023).…”

Controlling the human connectome with spatially diffuse input signals

“…HCP 3T data were quality controlled based on motion summary statistics and visual inspection. After exclusion of four high motion subjects and one subject due to software error, the final HCP 3T subset consisted of 95 subjects the final subset utilized included 95 subjects (56% female, mean age = 29.29 ± 3.66, age range = [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36].…”

“…Optimal control has been used to understand the link between brain structure and function [21][22][23][24], to study brain network development and executive function [25][26][27], working memory and schizophrenia [28], epilepsy [29,30], psychiatric disorders [31,32], mindfulness training [33], neurostimulation [34,35], and psychedelic research [36,37]. Other work has focused on understanding the metabolic cost of control [38,39].…”