Mechanisms of Meditation

冥想的机制

• 批准号: 8470880
• 负责人: Charles Raison
• 金额: $ 5.97万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-05-01 至 2014-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8470880
• 关键词: Mechanisms; Meditation

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The increasingly widespread use of meditation for stress-related emotional and medical conditions highlights the urgent need to rigorously evaluate mechanisms through which the benefits of practice might be conferred. Primary challenges in this regard include evaluating dose response relationships between practice time and outcomes; clarifying whether physiological and behavioral effects of meditation derive primarily from non-specific aspects of training or result from specific meditation practices; and identifying molecular mechanisms by which meditation might affect physiological responses relevant to stress-related illness. Recent findings from a cross-sectional study by our group indicate that young adults who are randomized to, and practice, compassion meditation demonstrate reduced inflammatory responses, less emotional distress, and reduced autonomic responses to a standardized laboratory psychosocial stressor (Trier Social Stress Test [TSST]) when compared to subjects randomized to an active control condition. However, as a result of the cross-sectional study design and lack of a meditation comparator arm, these results provide only partial insight into key issues outlined above regarding the role played by specific meditation procedures and/or practice time in observed physiological and behavioral outcomes. The primary hypothesis of the proposed work is that practicing a meditation procedure specifically designed to enhance empathic concern for others (i.e. compassion meditation) will optimize autonomic reactivity to psychosocial stress in a manner that results in diminished activation of peripheral inflammatory signaling pathways and reduced behavioral distress. To test this hypothesis, the following aims are proposed: Aim 1: to use a longitudinal design to definitively establish that practice time contributes to the effect of compassion meditation on in vivo inflammatory and behavioral responses to psychosocial stress; Aim 2: To examine whether the effect of compassion meditation on behavioral and inflammatory responses to psychosocial stress results specifically from training in the generation of empathic concern for others or derives more generally from learning the basic meditative practices of focused attention and mindfulness; and Aim 3: to investigate autonomic mechanisms by which meditation may attenuate stress-induced inflammation. To accomplish these aims, the current study will randomize 360 medically healthy adults to 6 weeks of either compassion meditation training, Mindful Attention Training (to control for exposure to the basic meditation practices of attention and mindfulness) or a health education discussion group (to control for potential non-specific elements such as group support). Prior to, and upon completion of these interventions, all subjects will undergo TSST testing in order to assess inflammatory, autonomic and behavioral responses to psychosocial stress. Health-relevant behavioral and lifestyle factors will also be assessed to evaluate their contribution to the effect of meditation on inflammation. The long-term health implications of this study will likely be far reaching given evidence that inflammatory pathways represent an important mechanism by which stress promotes and/or worsens many medical and psychiatric conditions. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The increasing use of meditation as a treatment for a variety of stress-related medical conditions highlights the public health importance of identifying mechanisms by which meditation may improve health, both to confirm efficacy for this widely used intervention and to better identify disease states toward which meditation might be optimally applied. The proposed study will test the hypothesis that meditation reduces inflammatory responses to psychosocial stress via reductions in autonomic activation in the face of perceived psychosocial stress. If confirmed, the long-term health implications of this hypothesis would likely be far reaching, given evidence that activation of innate immune inflammatory pathways represents an important mechanism by which stress promotes and/or worsens a wide range of serious medical and psychiatric conditions (i.e. vascular disease, diabetes, cancer, HIV, major depression) to which meditation is being increasingly applied as an intervention.

描述（由申请人提供）：越来越广泛地将冥想用于与压力相关的情绪和医疗状况强调，迫切需要严格评估可以赋予实践益处的机制。这方面的主要挑战包括评估实践时间和结果之间的剂量反应关系；阐明冥想的生理和行为影响是否主要源自训练的非特异性方面，还是由特定的冥想实践造成的；并确定冥想可能影响与压力相关疾病有关的生理反应的分子机制。我们小组的横截面研究的最新发现表明，随机分配和实践的年轻人表现出炎症反应减少，情绪困扰减少以及对标准化实验室心理社会压力源的自主性反应降低（Trier社会压力测试[ TSST]））与随机分配到主动控制条件的受试者相比。但是，由于横断面研究设计和缺乏冥想比较器部门的结果，这些结果仅提供了有关上面概述的有关特定冥想程序和/或练习时间在观察到的生理和行为成果中的作用的部分洞察力。拟议工作的主要假设是，练习专门设计的冥想程序，以增强他人的移情问题（即同情冥想）将以一种方式优化对心理压力的自主性反应性，以减少周围性炎症信号的激活和减少的行为行为困扰。 。为了检验这一假设，提出了以下目的：目标1：使用纵向设计确定实践时间有助于同情冥想对体内炎症和行为对社会心理压力的影响；目的2：检查同情冥想对行为和炎症反应的影响是否是由于对他人产生同理心关注的培训，还是通过学习集中注意力和正念的基本冥想实践而获得的培训。目标3：研究冥想可以减轻压力引起的炎症的自主机制。为了实现这些目的，当前的研究将将360名健康健康的成年人随机，到6周的同情冥想训练，正念注意训练（控制接触基本的关注和正念冥想实践）或健康教育讨论小组（控制对于潜在的非特异性元素，例如组支持）。在完成这些干预措施之前，所有受试者将进行TSST测试，以评估对社会心理压力的炎症，自主和行为反应。还将评估与健康相关的行为和生活方式因素，以评估其对冥想对炎症的影响的贡献。鉴于证据表明炎症途径代表了一种重要的机制，这项研究的长期健康影响可能会遥不可及，而压力促进和/或恶化了许多医学和精神病。公共卫生相关性：对各种压力相关的医疗状况的冥想越来越多地使用冥想来探讨公共健康的重要性，即识别冥想可以改善健康的机制，既可以确认这种广泛使用的干预措施的功效，又可以更好地识别疾病可以最佳地应用冥想的状态。拟议的研究将检验以下假设，即冥想通过在感知到的社会心理压力的情况下通过降低自主神经激活来减少对社会心理压力的炎症反应。如果得到证实，这一假设的长期健康含义可能会遥不可及，因为证据表明，先天免疫炎症途径的激活代表了一种重要的机制，通过这种机制，压力会促进和/或恶化各种严重的医学和精神病条件（即血管疾病，糖尿病，癌症，艾滋病毒，重度抑郁症）越来越多地应用于干预措施。