ABSTRACT
Introduction: Focused attention meditation is the voluntary focusing of attention on a chosen object in a sustained fashion, whose objective is to develop attentional and emotional regulatory skills./objective: We investigated the effect of a six-week focused attention meditation training on a discrimination task with emotional distractors by comparing participants' discriminability and bias before and after training. Method: College students were randomly assigned to either focused meditation (N=35), progressive relaxation (N=37), or control groups (N=28). 120 neutral and 120 emotional - negative and arousing pictures (9º x 12º), flanked by two peripheral bars (0.3º x 0.3º), equidistant from the centre of the picture (9º), were equally and randomly distributed and displayed among three blocks, one with low attentional (LA) and two with high attentional demand (HA). Participants indicated if bars were parallel or not by pressing one of two buttons. In LA and HA conditions, respectively, bars differed with 90º and 6º in half of the trials. Trials started with a fixation cross (1500ms) followed by the pictures and bars (200ms). Next, a chessboard remained on the screen until a response was given or for 2000ms. Results: Mixed-design ANOVAs showed no discriminability difference across groups (meditation=26; relaxation=24; control=24) pre-post training; only task difficulty affected discriminability [F(1,68) = 739.8, p < .001; LA > HA]. Response bias was affected by difficulty [F(1,68) = 81.2, p < .001; LA < HA], and testing session [F(1,68) = 23.1, p < .001; pre > post]. Additionally, there was a significant difficulty × session × group interaction [F(2,68) = 4.02, p = .02]: meditation (M = .58, SE =.36) and relaxation (M = .65, SE =.36) presented a reduction in response bias relative to control (M = .69, SE =.37), but only after training in the HA condition (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The reduction in response bias suggests that meditation and relaxation can affect decision making in a difficult perceptual discrimination task. Meditation showed the highest bias reduction, consistent with previous results linking meditation to attention and monitoring processes.
Subject(s)
Attention , Cognitive Behavioral Therapy , MeditationABSTRACT
PURPOSE: To investigate involvement of chronic estrogen deficiency in impairment of relaxation response of the clitoral cavernous smooth muscle. MATERIALS AND METHODS: New Zealand white female rabbits were randomly divided control (sham operation, n=6) and experimental groups; 1) bilateral oophorectomy (n=8), 2) oophorectomy with estradiol replacement (n=7), 3) oophorectomy with flutamide treatment (n=6). All the rabbits were sacrificed 12 weeks after the operations. Blood levels of estradiol and lipid fractions were measured just before the operations and sacrifice. Clitoral cavernous strips were obtained to observe relaxation responses to endothelium-dependent and -independent vasodilators, and electrical field stimulation (ESF). RESULTS: The uterus weight and serum estradiol level decreased significantly (p<0.01) in the oophorectomy group compared with the baseline data. The serum levels of total cholesterol, triglyceride, and low density lipoprotein increased significantly (p<0.01) in the oophorectomy group. The relaxations of the clitoral strips to acetylcholine were significantly attenuated in the oophorectomy group compared with those of the control and estrogen replacement groups. However, sodium nitroprusside- and nonadrenergic noncholinergic-induced relaxations were not significantly different among the 4 groups. No significant histologic changes were noted in the clitoral tissues of the oophorectomy group. CONCLUSIONS: Chronic estrogen deficiency in the rabbits may cause impairment of endothelium-dependent relaxation of clitoral corpus cavernosal smooth muscles. Further studies are needed to determine whether the hypoesterogenemia itself and/or secondary hypercholesterolemia due to the chronic estrogen deficiency may result in the impairment.