Mindfulness training increases the efficiency of attentional orienting: an examination with lateralized eeg power spectra

Mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) training may be considered as a technique that improves the efficiency of attentional orienting. At a neurophysiological level, this efficiency can be examined by measuring the electroencephalogram (EEG) in an endogenous cuing paradigm. A task variant was employed in which one side of a double-sided arrow cued the hand at which a to-be-detected nociceptive stimulus might occur. This paradigm enables us to compute lateralized power spectra (LPS) of the EEG, which was shown to be highly sensitive for attentional orienting. Thirty-two participants were randomly assigned to two groups (A, B). Members from group A participated in our task both before (pre-A) and after (post-A) the MBSR training of eight weeks, while members from Group B took part only after the training (post-B). Examination of the results of the LPS analyses for the orienting phase during the cue-target interval revealed increased ipsilateral vs. contralateral power in the lower and higher alpha bands above parietal sites after the training both in the within-subjects (pre-A vs. post-A) and in the between-subjects (pre-A vs. post-B) comparisons. These neurophysiological findings confirm the idea that mindfulness increases the efficiency of
attentional orienting.