TY - JOUR

T1 - Mindfulness training with adolescents enhances metacognition and the inhibition of irrelevant stimuli: Evidence from event-related brain potentials

AU - Sanger, K.L.

AU - Dorjee, D.

N1 - This work was supported by the ESRC Welsh DTC [Grant number: ES/J500197/1

PY - 2016/3

Y1 - 2016/3

N2 - With the increased interest in school-based mindfulness interventions, there have been repeated calls to investigate neurodevelopmental markers of change. This non-randomised study of 16–18 year olds with wait-list control group examined possible enhancements to brain indexes of attention processing after school-based mindfulness training using event-related potentials (ERPs) (N=47 for self-report; N=40 for ERPs). Results showed significantly more negative N2 amplitudes after training, in response to irrelevant frequent stimuli and colour-deviant non-target oddball stimuli in a visual oddball paradigm. Improvements in negative thought controllability were associated with more negative N2 amplitudes post-training across groups, and mindfulness training was associated with reductions in students' hypercritical self-beliefs. There were no group differences on task performance, but regression analysis indicated that programme satisfaction explained 16% of the variance in improved target accuracy. Together these results suggest that a school-based mindfulness curriculum can enhance older adolescents' task-relevant inhibitory control of attention and perceived mental competency.

AB - With the increased interest in school-based mindfulness interventions, there have been repeated calls to investigate neurodevelopmental markers of change. This non-randomised study of 16–18 year olds with wait-list control group examined possible enhancements to brain indexes of attention processing after school-based mindfulness training using event-related potentials (ERPs) (N=47 for self-report; N=40 for ERPs). Results showed significantly more negative N2 amplitudes after training, in response to irrelevant frequent stimuli and colour-deviant non-target oddball stimuli in a visual oddball paradigm. Improvements in negative thought controllability were associated with more negative N2 amplitudes post-training across groups, and mindfulness training was associated with reductions in students' hypercritical self-beliefs. There were no group differences on task performance, but regression analysis indicated that programme satisfaction explained 16% of the variance in improved target accuracy. Together these results suggest that a school-based mindfulness curriculum can enhance older adolescents' task-relevant inhibitory control of attention and perceived mental competency.

U2 - 10.1016/j.tine.2016.01.001

DO - 10.1016/j.tine.2016.01.001

M3 - Article

VL - 5

SP - 1

EP - 11

JO - Trends in Neuroscience and Education

JF - Trends in Neuroscience and Education

SN - 2211-9493

IS - 1

ER -