Objective: The aim of the current study is to investigate the effect of an eight-week mindfulness training intervention on emotion related brain activation in people with Parkinson’s (PwP).

Background: Mindfulness is used for stress reduction in patient populations coping with chronic illness. Mindfulness may affect emotional processing. There has been increasing attention on emotional processes in PD. Recognition of emotions are often impaired in PwP, and have been shown to exist early in the disease (Ibarretxe-Bilbao 2009). Cognitive reappraisal as evidenced on fMRI has been associated with increased activation in prefrontal cortex (Nelson 2015).

Methods: A total of 26 out of 30 PwP completed a randomized controlled longitudinal trial. A structured eight-week program of mindfulness was followed by 13 PwP and 13 PwP received usual care alone. fMRI data were acquired at baseline and after 8 weeks for all PwP subjects. During the fMRI acquisition, subjects saw a target face and had to select which 1 of 2 faces presented on the screen expressed the same emotion (fear or anger). As a control task, oval shapes were used instead of faces and subjects needed to match the shape. All data sets were analyzed using SPM8 software. After preprocessing, alignment of all fMRI data and 3D-T1 scans to MNI space and smoothing of the fMRI data with a kernel of 8mm, first level contrast of faces>ellipses were obtained for all subjects. Second level analysis consisted of paired t-tests to evaluate differences over time for both groups. Results were reported at p<0.005, uncorrected for multiple comparisons.

Results: Comparing the fMRI data of baseline and after 8 weeks of usual care did not show any significant differences in brain activation during the emotional task. However, in the mindfulness training group, a significant increase in brain activation during the processing of emotional faces was observed in the left and right superior temporal lobe, left insula, and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that evaluates the effect of mindfulness training on the brain activation of people with Parkinson’s (PwP) during an emotional task using fMRI. In contrast to the usual care group, we found significant longitudinal changes in brain activation in PwP after mindfulness training.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/the-effect-of-an-eight-week-mindfulness-training-intervention-on-emotion-related-brain-activation-in-people-with-parkinsons-disease/