Event-related potential correlates of mindfulness meditation competence.

OBJECTIVE: This cross-sectional study evaluated event-related potentials (ERPs) across three groups: naïve, novice, and experienced meditators as potential physiological markers of mindfulness meditation competence. METHODS: Electroencephalographic (EEG) data were collected during a target tone detection task and a Breath Counting task. The Breath Counting task served as the mindfulness meditation condition for the novice and experienced meditator groups. Participants were instructed to respond to target tones with a button press in the first task (Tones), and then ignore the primed tones while Breath Counting. The primary outcomes were ERP responses to target tones, namely the N2 and P3, as markers of stimulus discrimination and attention, respectively. RESULTS: As expected, P3 amplitudes elicited by target tones were attenuated within groups during the Breath Counting task in comparison to the Tones task (p<.001). There was a task by group interaction for P3 (p=.039). Both meditator groups displayed greater change in peak-to-trough P3 amplitudes, with higher amplitudes during the Tones condition and more pronounced reductions in P3 amplitudes during the Breath Counting meditation task in comparison to the naïve group. CONCLUSIONS: Meditators had stronger P3 amplitude responses to target tones when instructed to attend to the tones, and a greater attenuation of P3 amplitudes when instructed to ignore the same tones during the Breath Counting task. This study introduces the idea of identifying ERP markers as a means of measuring mindfulness meditation competence, and results suggest this may be a valid approach. This information has the potential to improve mindfulness meditation interventions by allowing objective assessment of mindfulness meditation quality.

Word valence, attention, and hemispheric activity in depressed, remitted, and nondepressed controls.

Clinically depressed (n = 20), previously depressed (n = 28), and nondepressed control (n = 27) individuals, classified according to a structured clinical diagnostic interview, participated in a study employing a modified prior entry (Titchener, 1908) procedure to investigate interrelationships among word (adjective) valence, visual attention, and cerebral hemispheric activity. Overall, positive words were selected more quickly when presented to the right, versus left, visual field (RVF, LVF); the opposite pattern was observed for negative words. While there was no significant group X Valence X Visual Field interaction, planned comparisons revealed that the aforementioned Valence X Visual Field interaction was significant only for the nondepressed control group. Although the remitted group exhibited an overall pattern similar to the control group, the depressed group evinced a pattern in the opposite direction for positive words (i.e., quicker in the LVF than the RVF).

Exploring the contribution of the cerebral hemispheres to language comprehension deficits in adults with developmental language disorder.

A divided visual field, priming paradigm was used to observe how adults who have a history of developmental language disorder (DLD) access lexically ambiguous words. The results show that sustained semantic access to subordinate word meanings (such as BANK-RIVER), which is seen in control subjects, is disrupted in the right cerebral hemisphere for this special population of readers. In the left hemisphere, only the most dominant meaning of the ambiguous word shows sustained priming in both controls and DLD participants. Therefore, for the DLD readers the subordinate meanings of words are not primed in either hemisphere and, thus, may not be available during online processing and integration of discourse. This right hemisphere lexical access deficit might contribute to the language comprehension difficulties exhibited by adult readers with a history of DLD.

Prefrontal regions play a predominant role in imposing an attentional 'set': evidence from fMRI.

fMRI was used to determine whether prefrontal regions play a predominant role in imposing an attentional 'set' that drives selection of task-relevant information. While monitoring for an atypical item, individuals viewed Stroop stimuli that were either colored words or colored objects. Attentional demands were varied, being greater when the stimuli contained two distinct and incongruent sources of information about the task-relevant attribute (e.g., when attending to color, seeing the word 'blue' in red ink) as compared to only one source (e.g., seeing the word 'late' in red ink). Prefrontal but not anterior cingulate regions exhibited greater activation on incongruent than neutral trials, suggesting that prefrontal cortex has a major role in imposing an attentional 'set'. In addition, we found that prefrontal activation is most likely to occur when that attentional set is difficult to impose.

fMri studies of Stroop tasks reveal unique roles of anterior and posterior brain systems in attentional selection.

The brain's attentional system identifies and selects information that is task-relevant while ignoring information that is task-irrelevant. In two experiments using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined the effects of varying task-relevant information compared to task-irrelevant information. In the first experiment, we compared patterns of activation as attentional demands were increased for two Stroop tasks that differed in the task-relevant information, but not the task-irrelevant information: a color-word task and a spatial-word task. Distinct subdivisions of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the precuneus became activated for each task, indicating differential sensitivity of these regions to task-relevant information (e.g., spatial information vs. color). In the second experiment, we compared patterns of activation with increased attentional demands for two Stroop tasks that differed in task-irrelevant information, but not task-relevant information: a color-word task and color-object task. Little differentiation in activation for dorsolateral prefrontal and precuneus regions was observed, indicating a relative insensitivity of these regions to task-irrelevant information. However, we observed a differentiation in the pattern of activity for posterior regions. There were unique areas of activation in parietal regions for the color-word task and in occipitotemporal regions for the color-object task. No increase in activation was observed in regions responsible for processing the perceptual attribute of color. The results of this second experiment indicate that attentional selection in tasks such as the Stroop task, which contain multiple potential sources of relevant information (e.g., the word vs. its ink color), acts more by modulating the processing of task-irrelevant information than by modulating processing of task-relevant information.

The effect of time course and context on the facilitation of semantic features in the cerebral hemispheres.

Two divided visual field priming experiments were designed to determine the nature of lexical retrieval in the cerebral hemispheres by studying the facilitation of semantic features of unambiguous nouns. Unambiguous nouns have a single meaning, yet semantic features associated with these nouns may vary in the degree to which they are compatible with this single meaning (e.g., LAMB-WOOL as compared with LAMB-CHOPS). Results suggest that the left hemisphere selects both strongly and weakly associated semantic features that are compatible with the dominant representation of the noun. Dominance compatibility, rather than association strength, seems to be the more important factor for deciding what features are maintained in the left hemisphere. In contrast, the right hemisphere maintains more varied information, including features that are less compatible with the dominant representation (Experiment 1) and context information (Experiment 2).

Cerebral hemispheric mechanisms linking ambiguous word meaning retrieval and creativity.

The deferral of ambiguity resolution has been thought to be an important component of creativity. The time course of priming of dominant and subordinate meanings of ambiguous words was investigated using a divided visual field priming paradigm with subjects that varied on a measure of creativity. The Wallach-Kogan similarities subtest was used to group 72 subjects into three levels of verbal creativity to compare their performance on the ambiguity resolution task (Burgess & Simpson, 1988a). Results suggest that both the left and right hemispheres contribute to the maintenance of multiple word meanings in highly creative subjects, while less creative subjects show sustained subordinate priming only in the right hemisphere or no sustained subordinate priming. These results support an interactive, collaborative theory of verbal creativity (Bogen & Bogen, 1969) and suggest that there are important individual differences that expand on the basic time course model of hemispheric processing (Burgess & Simpson, 1988a).

Hemispheric specialization in the detection of subjective objects.

Three experiments were conducted to examine hemispheric specialization for the detection of subjective objects. In the first two experiments, observers searched for the presence of a square defined by subjective contours. The first experiment demonstrated that the left hemisphere made more errors for detecting these objects. The second experiment showed that the increased errors were due to the left hemisphere responding to the individual features of the objects and not the objects as a whole. In the second experiment, the right hemisphere was also faster for detecting the absence of a subjective object. A third experiment was conducted to determine if performance for the right hemisphere was due to object level processing. It was shown that the right hemisphere only makes illusory conjunctions for features within perceptual groups while the left hemisphere makes illusory conjunctions both within and across perceptual groups, providing converging evidence for object level processing in the right hemisphere. The results suggest that the right hemisphere conjoins feature information for the perception of objects.

Intubation success rates improve for an air medical program after implementing the use of neuromuscular blocking agents.

To determine whether the success rate for endotracheal intubation improves after implementing the use of neuromuscular blocking (NMB) agents in an air medical program, this retrospective study analyzed all patients requiring endotracheal intubation at two air medical programs (nurse/paramedic crews) over a 5-year period. Air medical program A, the control group, had employed NMB agents throughout the entire study period. Air medical program B, which did not use NMB agents from July 1, 1989 through June 30, 1992, implemented their use starting July 1, 1992. For program A, the overall intubation success rate was 93.5% (202 successful intubations in 216 patients) and the successful intubations/total attempts ratio was 0.67 (202 of 301). For program B, the overall intubation success rate improved from 66.7% (46 successful intubations in 69 patients) before NMB agent use to 90.5% (57 in 63) after NMB agent use (P = .001). The successful intubations/total attempts ratio increased from 0.36 (51 of 141) prior to NMB agent use to 0.48 (63 of 132) after NMB agent use (P = NS). In comparing the 92 patients who did not receive NMB agents to the 40 patients who did, the intubation success rate increased from 69.6% (64 of 92) to 97.5% (39 of 40) (P < .001) and the successful intubation/total attempts ratio increased from 0.36 (73 of 202) to 0.58 (41 of 71) (P = .007). With the use of NMB agents, program B's overall intubation success rate increased significantly, matching the results of program A.

Long-range antecedents of functional capability in later life.

A number of demographic, social, psychological, lifestyle, and health characteristics have been advanced as precursors of functional limitation among those who survive to old age. This study uses data from a 16-year longitudinal study to examine long-range antecedents of the respondents' level of physical functional capability in 1991. The model predicting functional capability from longitudinal data is more complex and more effective for women than for men. Older age, lower self-rated health, lower functional capability, and lower physical activity level in 1975 predict 35% of the variation in functional capability among women in 1991. Only older age and lower self-rated health are predictive for men and account for just 11% of the variation. These findings suggest a need for gender-specific models of antecedents of physical functional limitations in later life.

Ohio community mental health center directors' perceptions of programming for older adults: an exploratory study.

This study of Ohio CMHC directors' perceptions examines three systems dimensions: how mental health services are provided to elders, levels of service needs and whether they are met, and barriers to service delivery. Two distinct types of centers are compared--those that do and do not have specialized geriatric components. Specialized programming efforts appear to be making a difference in bridging the gap between levels of service delivery and need.

A continuity theory of normal aging.

Continuity Theory holds that, in making adaptive choices, middle-aged and older adults attempt to preserve and maintain existing internal and external structures; and they prefer to accomplish this objective by using strategies tied to their past experiences of themselves and their social world. Change is linked to the person's perceived past, producing continuity in inner psychological characteristics as well as in social behavior and in social circumstances. Continuity is thus a grand adaptive strategy that is promoted by both individual preference and social approval.

Selected social and psychological differences between men and women in later life.

Older men and women (3630) were examined for sex differences in selected social and psychological characteristics. Compared to older men, older women were found to be as work-oriented and more likely to take a long time adjusting to retirement. Older women were more likely to report "negative" psychological symptoms, while older men were more likely to see changes in social participation. Implications of the findings for current theories are discussed.

Adjustment to loss of job at retirement.

This paper presents an approach to adjustment to the loss of job at retirement which attempts to integrate earlier approaches by focusing on the impact of retirement on the individual's hierarchy of personal goals. If the job is high in that hierarchy and yet unachieved, then the individual can be expected to seek another job or job substitute. If this is unsuccessful, then the hierarchy of personal goals must be reorganized. If the individual is broadly engaged, the hierarchy can be consolidated. If he or she is narrowly engaged, then alternate roles must be sought. If the search is successful, a new hierarchy emerges. If not, the individual must withdraw. If the job is not high in the hierarchy to begin with, then no serious change in personal goals accompanies retirement.