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Abstract

In this talk, the author will present her laboratoryâ??s recent research examining the role of mindfulness in incurring psychological prophylaxis for older adults. While the construct of mindfulness has roots in the Buddhist tradition, the contemporary, scientific investigation of mindfulness has been gaining increasing prominence. A central focus of the field of cognitive aging involves securing the quality of life of older adults. Given the putative primacy of maintaining emotional well-being and control in older adults, mindfulness training, with its emphasis on present-focused attention and regulation of the habitual, reflexive tendencies of the mind, has the potential to enhance both cognitive control and emotional control operations in the elderly and the neural circuitry associated with it. In this talk, the author will present both cross-sectional and longitudinal research designed to elucidate associations between dispositional mindfulness, levels of perceived stress, and emotional and cognitive control in older adults. Higher levels of mindfulness in older adults was found to be inversely associated with levels of perceived stress; a relationship that was found to be mediated by emotion regulation abilities. Additionally, dispositional mindfulness was associated with reactive control and the neural circuitry supporting reactive control in older adults. Older participants with higher levels of dispositional mindfulness demonstrated parametric increase in the prefrontal regions supporting facets of cognitive control, as well as reduced activation of the regions of a network known to be involved in self-generated mental activity. Interestingly, this self-generated mental activity or mind-wandering was negatively associated with higher levels of mindfulness, suggesting that one pathway through which mindfulness might be associated with higher cognitive control is through reduction of mind-wandering. Data from an ongoing longitudinal study, examining the effects of mindfulness training, relative to a lifestyle education group in reducing mind-wandering would be presented. Given the synergistic relationship between emotional and cognitive control processes, the paradoxical divergence in older adultsâ?? functional trajectory in these respective domains, and the harmonious interplay of cognitive and emotional control embedded in the practice of mindfulness, we propose mindfulness training as an opportunistic approach to cultivating cognitive and emotional benefits in older adults.

Biography