Procedure
How long were the sessions every week
2 and 1/2 hours per week
Where there differences in the grey matter concentration between the control and the experiment group?
no
Mindfullness course causes
structural changed in brain regions
What stregnth occured relating to longitudinal studies?
Participant variables did not occur since the study was not cross sectional and was longitudinal instead.
What is the aim of the study?
Identify changes in specific brain regions and the whole brain, by comparing grey matter before and after mindfulness course.
How many sub scales does the FFMQ have?
5
How many participants produced valuable information both times in the FFMQ?
14
What increases or decreases in the hippocampal volume?
Mindfullness and Meditation
What is a weakness of the MRI relating to ecological validity?
Low ecological validity since it is noisy and confining
Research Methods
Longitudinal Study and self report questionnaire
FFMQ stands for...
Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire
How long did the PARTICIPANTS spend on average on each mindfulness homework a day?
27 minutes
Since the hippocampus plays a rold in learning and memory what could you conclude about the PP's in the MBSR course?
Participants had exercises that changed the hippocampus gray matter.
How was using an MRI scanner a stregnth?
It provided quantitative data, enabling them to carry out statistical analysis.
Experimental design
Independent Measure
What were the 2 regions of interest?
hippocampus on both sides of the brain
How long did the EXPERIMENTAL GROUP spent on average on their mindfulness homework?
22.6 hours
Which key area of the cerebellum was identified as changing due to mindful next practice?
Hippocampus, TPJ, PCC
What was a weakness of correlation that occured?
The absence of correlations between increases in grey matter in any brain area examined and either the amount of mindfulness between completed or changed in FFMQ score
IV
exposure to an 8-week MBSR course
2 ways the MRI scans were used
1.To produce a region of interest analysis of particular brain areas
2. Privide a whole brain analysis
Where were the 4 clusters of increased grey matter found?
PCC, cerbellum, TPJ
The TPJ is important how?
What is a weakness about the MRI and the data is provides to the study?
The interpretation of data with respect to neutral changes and how it effects emotions is much less onjective.
DV
Changes in gray matter