Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on neuropeptide Y plasma levels in stressed individuals.

Background: Clinical studies have suggested that dysregulation of the neuropeptide Y (NPY) system may play a role in psychiatric disorders, including chronic stress. Meanwhile, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) has shown promise for stress-related maladies. However, no studies have explored whether MBSR can change plasma NPY concentration in stressed individuals.

Resting-state connectivity and neural response to emotional images in patients with severe health anxiety: An fMRI study.

Background: Severe health anxiety is a disorder characterized by a persistent preoccupation with one's health. In behavioral studies, biases in the processing of health-related stimuli (e.g.

The effect of mental health interventions on psychological distress for informal caregivers of people with mental illness: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: Informal caregivers of people with a mental illness are at increased risk of developing depression, anxiety, and stress, so preventive interventions are needed.

Method: The review was reported in PROSPERO (ID: CRD42018094454). The PsycINFO, PubMed, and Scopus databases were searched in June 2019.

Pre-retirement Employees Experience Lasting Improvements in Resilience and Well-Being After Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.

The socio-economic benefits of interventions to prevent stress and related mental health problems are enormous. In the labor market, it is becoming desirable to keep employees for as long as possible. Since aging implies additional stressors such as increased risk of illness, and added pressure by professional tasks such as transferring knowledge, or learning new technologies, it is of particular relevance to offer stress-reduction to pre-retirement employees.

Effect of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction on dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate in adults with self-reported stress. A randomized trial.

Long-term stress can lead to long-term increased cortisol plasma levels, which increases the risk of numerous diseases. Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and its sulfated form dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate (DHEAS), together DHEA(S), have shown to counteract some of the effects of cortisol and may be protective during stress. The program "Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction" (MBSR) has shown to have positive effects on stress.

Effect of a Compassion Cultivation Training Program for Caregivers of People With Mental Illness in Denmark: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Caregivers of people with mental illness are at increased risk of developing depression, anxiety, and stress.

Objective: To investigate the effect of a compassion cultivation training (CCT) program on decreasing caregiver psychological distress.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This waitlist-controlled randomized clinical trial was conducted in 2 different community settings in Denmark.

A pilot randomised trial comparing a mindfulness-based stress reduction course, a locally-developed stress reduction intervention and a waiting list control group in a real-life municipal health care setting.

Background: The purpose of the present study was to conduct a pilot randomised controlled trial (RCT) to lend support to a larger effectiveness RCT comparing Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a locally-developed stress reduction intervention (LSR) and a waiting list control group in a Danish municipal health care center setting.

Methods: A three-armed parallel pilot RCT was conducted among 71 adults who contacted a Danish municipal health care center due to stress-related problems. Recruitment was made between January and April 2018 and followed usual procedures.

Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in a Self-Selecting and Self-Paying Community Setting.

We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) when implemented in a community setting as a self-referred and self-paid course. Pre-post changes and Cohen's effect sizes were calculated for questionnaire measures of mindfulness, perceived stress, and symptoms of anxiety and depression. We compared these effect sizes with those from intervention groups in randomized controlled trials (RCTs), with populations similar to our study sample.

The impact of mindfulness-based interventions on brain activity: A systematic review of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies.

Mindfulness-based interventions are increasingly used in the treatment and prevention of mental health conditions. Despite this, the mechanisms of change for such interventions are only beginning to be understood, with a number of recent studies assessing changes in brain activity. The aim of this systematic review was to assess changes in brain functioning associated with manualised 8-session mindfulness interventions.

Experience Drives Synchronization: The phase and Amplitude Dynamics of Neural Oscillations to Musical Chords Are Differentially Modulated by Musical Expertise.

Musical expertise is associated with structural and functional changes in the brain that underlie facilitated auditory perception. We investigated whether the phase locking (PL) and amplitude modulations (AM) of neuronal oscillations in response to musical chords are correlated with musical expertise and whether they reflect the prototypicality of chords in Western tonal music. To this aim, we recorded magnetoencephalography (MEG) while musicians and non-musicians were presented with common prototypical major and minor chords, and with uncommon, non-prototypical dissonant and mistuned chords, while watching a silenced movie.

A systematic review of mechanisms of change in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in the treatment of recurrent major depressive disorder.

Background: The investigation of treatment mechanisms in randomized controlled trials has considerable clinical and theoretical relevance. Despite the empirical support for the effect of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) in the treatment of recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD), the specific mechanisms by which MBCT leads to therapeutic change remain unclear.

Objective: By means of a systematic review we evaluate how the field is progressing in its empirical investigation of mechanisms of change in MBCT for recurrent MDD.

Implicit processing of visual emotions is affected by sound-induced affective states and individual affective traits.

The ability to recognize emotions contained in facial expressions are affected by both affective traits and states and varies widely between individuals. While affective traits are stable in time, affective states can be regulated more rapidly by environmental stimuli, such as music, that indirectly modulate the brain state. Here, we tested whether a relaxing or irritating sound environment affects implicit processing of facial expressions.

Cognitive control in auditory working memory is enhanced in musicians.

Musical competence may confer cognitive advantages that extend beyond processing of familiar musical sounds. Behavioural evidence indicates a general enhancement of both working memory and attention in musicians. It is possible that musicians, due to their training, are better able to maintain focus on task-relevant stimuli, a skill which is crucial to working memory.

Cognitive and motor loops of the human cerebro-cerebellar system.

We applied fMRI and diffusion-weighted MRI to study the segregation of cognitive and motor functions in the human cerebro-cerebellar system. Our fMRI results show that a load increase in a nonverbal auditory working memory task is associated with enhanced brain activity in the parietal, dorsal premotor, and lateral prefrontal cortices and in lobules VII-VIII of the posterior cerebellum, whereas a sensory-motor control task activated the motor/somatosensory, medial prefrontal, and posterior cingulate cortices and lobules V/VI of the anterior cerebellum. The load-dependent activity in the crus I/II had a specific relationship with cognitive performance: This activity correlated negatively with load-dependent increase in RTs.

Predictive coding of music--brain responses to rhythmic incongruity.

During the last decades, models of music processing in the brain have mainly discussed the specificity of brain modules involved in processing different musical components. We argue that predictive coding offers an explanatory framework for functional integration in musical processing. Further, we provide empirical evidence for such a network in the analysis of event-related MEG-components to rhythmic incongruence in the context of strong metric anticipation.

Neural discrimination of nonprototypical chords in music experts and laymen: an MEG study.

At the level of the auditory cortex, musicians discriminate pitch changes more accurately than nonmusicians. However, it is not agreed upon how sound familiarity and musical expertise interact in the formation of pitch-change discrimination skills, that is, whether musicians possess musical pitch discrimination abilities that are generally more accurate than in nonmusicians or, alternatively, whether they may be distinguished from nonmusicians particularly with respect to the discrimination of nonprototypical sounds that do not play a reference role in Western tonal music. To resolve this, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to measure the change-related magnetic mismatch response (MMNm) in musicians and nonmusicians to two nonprototypical chords, a "dissonant" chord containing a highly unpleasant interval and a "mistuned" chord including a mistuned pitch, and a minor chord, all inserted in a context of major chords.

Cognitive and emotional modulation of brain default operation.

Goal-directed behavior lowers activity in brain areas that include the medial frontal cortex, the medial and lateral parietal cortex, and limbic and paralimbic brain regions, commonly referred to as the "default network." These activity decreases are believed to reflect the interruption of processes that are ongoing when the mind is in a restful state. Previously, the nature of these processes was probed by varying cognitive task parameters, but the presence of emotional processes, while often assumed, was little investigated.

Emotion processing of major, minor, and dissonant chords: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

Musicians and nonmusicians listened to major, minor, and dissonant musical chords while their BOLD brain responses were registered with functional magnetic resonance imaging. In both groups of listeners, minor and dissonant chords, compared with major chords, elicited enhanced responses in several brain areas, including the amygdala, retrosplenial cortex, brain stem, and cerebellum, during passive listening but not during memorization of the chords. The results indicate that (1) neural processing in emotion-related brain areas is activated even by single chords, (2) emotion processing is enhanced in the absence of cognitive requirements, and (3) musicians and nonmusicians do not differ in their neural responses to single musical chords during passive listening.

To musicians, the message is in the meter pre-attentive neuronal responses to incongruent rhythm are left-lateralized in musicians.

Musicians exchange non-verbal cues as messages when they play together. This is particularly true in music with a sketchy outline. Jazz musicians receive and interpret the cues when performance parts from a regular pattern of rhythm, suggesting that they enjoy a highly developed sensitivity to subtle deviations of rhythm.