Mindfulness Meditation for Symptom Reduction in Fibromyalgia: Psychophysiological Correlates

Objectives Fibromyalgia, a chronic pain syndrome, is often accompanied by psychological distress and increased basal sympathetic tone. In a previous report it was shown that mindfulness-based stress-reduction (MBSR) reduced depressive symptoms in patients with fibromyalgia with gains maintained at two months follow-up (Sephton et al., Arthr Rheum 57:77–85, 2007). This second study explores the effects of MBSR on basal sympathetic (SNS) activation among women with fibromyalgia. Methods Participants (n = 24) responded to a television news appearance, newspaper, and radio advertisements. Effects on anxiety, depressive symptoms, and SNS activation measures were tested before and after MBSR using a within-subjects design. Results The MBSR treatment significantly reduced basal electrodermal (skin conductance level; SCL) activity (t = 3.298, p = .005) and SCL activity during meditation (t = 4.389, p = .001), consistent with reduced SNS activation. Conclusions In this small sample, basal SNS activity was reduced following MBSR treatment. Future studies should assess how MBSR may help reduce negative psychological symptoms and attenuate SNS activation in fibromyalgia. Further clarification of psychological and physiological responses associated with fibromyalgia may lead to more beneficial treatment.     

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Sense of Coherence Among Women with Fibromyalgia

Sense of Coherence (SOC) is conceptualized as a disposition to experience life as meaningful and manageable. Research suggests a protective effect of SOC on psychological health in stressful circumstances. This study assessed the capacity of SOC to buffer the effect of illness symptoms on psychological distress among patients with fibromyalgia. Self-reported changes in SOC after participation in a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program were also examined. Ninety-one women with fibromyalgia provided baseline data pertaining to illness symptoms, perceived stress, and depression prior to participation in a randomized trial of MBSR. SOC and fibromyalgia symptoms were independently related to perceived stress and depression at baseline. SOC was not a statistically significant moderator of symptom effects on psychological distress. In comparison with wait-listed controls, program participants reported a significant increase in SOC after MBSR participation. These results provide the first demonstration from a randomized trial that SOC may be enhanced via intervention.     

Sleep in children enhances preferentially emotional declarative but not procedural memories

Although the consolidation of several memory systems is enhanced by sleep in adults, recent studies suggest that sleep supports declarative memory but not procedural memory in children. In the current study, the influence of sleep on emotional declarative memory (recognition task) and procedural memory (mirror tracing task) in 20 healthy children (10-13 years of age) was examined. After sleep, children showed an improvement in declarative memory. Separate analysis with respect to the emotional stimulus content revealed that sleep enhances the recognition of emotional stimuli (p > .001) rather than neutral stimuli (p = .084). In the procedural task, however, no sleep-enhanced memory improvement was observed. The results indicate that sleep in children, comparable to adults, enhances predominantly emotional declarative memory; however, in contrast to adults, it has no effect on the consolidation of procedural memory.     

Waking and dreaming: related but structurally independent. Dream reports of congenitally paraplegic and deaf-mute persons

Models of dream analysis either assume a continuum of waking and dreaming or the existence of two dissociated realities. Both approaches rely on different methodology. Whereas continuity models are based on content analysis, discontinuity models use a structural approach. In our study, we applied both methods to test specific hypotheses about continuity or discontinuity. We contrasted dream reports of congenitally deaf-mute and congenitally paraplegic individuals with those of non-handicapped controls. Continuity theory would predict that either the deficit itself or compensatory experiences would surface in the dream narrative. We found that dream form and content of sensorially limited persons was indifferent from those of non-handicapped controls. Surprisingly, perceptual representations, even of modalities not experienced during waking, were quite common in the dream reports of our handicapped subjects. Results are discussed with respect to feedforward mechanisms and protoconsciousness theory of dreaming.     

Study Burnout and Engagement During COVID-19 Among University Students: The Role of Demands,Resources, and Psychological Needs

The COVID-19 pandemic forced most universities to switch from in-person to remote teaching from May 2020 to May 2021. This period covered three semesters of studies, and due to these changes students experienced fundamental changes in their learning. The present research was carried out 3 times during the pandemic (e.g., May 2020, December 2020, and April 2021) to investigate study engagement and burnout, and their associations with various demands, resources, and psychological needs among university students. Self-reports were collected from 1501, 1526, and 1685 university students in Helsinki. The results showed that study burnout increased across the time points, being the highest in April 2021, whereas study engagement was the lowest in December 2020. Further, at the beginning of the pandemic the explanatory power of study-related demands and resources on study burnout and engagement was stronger, whereas in April 2021 the role of psychological needs increased. These results inform strategies to promote students’ engagement through distance-learning, mitigating negative effects of the situation.

     

Biological and psychological factors associated with memory function in fibromyalgia syndrome.

Fibromyalgia is a stress-related disorder characterized by chronic pain, memory impairment, and neuroendocrine aberrations. With the hypothesis that biological and psychological symptoms may underlie the cognitive problems, the relative influences of neuroendocrine function and psychological factors on declarative memory were examined among 50 women with fibromyalgia. This within-group analysis controlled for age, education, pain, and relevant medications. Neuroendocrine function and depression had significant independent associations with memory function. Higher log-transformed mean salivary cortisol levels were associated with better performance on both immediate and delayed visual recall and with delayed verbal recall. Depressive symptoms were negatively associated with verbal recall. These findings suggest that a basic disorder of endocrine stress responses may contribute to the cognitive symptoms experienced by fibromyalgia patients.