The Cognitive Mechanisms of Mindful Attention and Stress

压力会增加患心脏病、抑郁、焦虑、糖尿病和抑制免疫功能的风险。尽管几十年来的研究已经探索了生物化学组成和对压力事件进行分类的过程，但压力思想背后的具体认知机制还没有得到很好的理解。从长远来看，理解这些机制将告诉我们如何测量、治疗和改善压力。先前的研究已经解决了可能导致事件体验压力的认知机制；也就是说，个体变得如此沉浸在压力思想的心理重演中，以至于这种思想本身引发了压力反应和消极情绪。正念注意力可以防止个人沉浸在压力思想的体验中，从而引发压力反应。正念的注意力包括认识到一个人的思想是存在于自己头脑中的精神状态，而不是存在于外部世界。当一个人以这种方式对待思想时，它们在没有压力反应的情况下产生和消散。目前，对于如何通过正念注意来防止沉浸在压力思想中，从而减少个体对压力的主观体验及其神经执行，人们缺乏理解。在一项功能磁共振成像研究中，目前的研究旨在通过比较当参与者完全专注于他们对压力情景的思考时（沉浸式视角）和当他们将自己的想法观察为短暂的精神状态时（正念视角）的神经活动来填补这一空白。这将揭示有助于在思想中再现压力事件的认知机制。研究人员还将研究减少沉浸在压力思想中的神经基础。此外，研究人员将调查个体在特质吸收、反刍和正念方面的差异是如何影响人们沉浸在压力思维中的倾向的。与那些天生专注度高的人相比，那些更容易反刍或更专注的参与者可能更难集中注意力。这个项目的结果将增加我们对如何对抗压力的负面影响，如何治疗压力相关疾病，以及如何识别有压力相关疾病风险的人的理解，从而有可能实现预防。这项工作也可能揭示正念注意力的神经机制，以及为什么正念相关治疗有治疗效果。

Stress is linked to increased risk of heart disease, depression, anxiety, diabetes, and suppressed immune function. Though decades of research have explored the biochemical makeup and the process of categorizing a stressful event, the specific cognitive mechanisms underlying stressful thoughts are not well understood. In the long run, understanding these mechanisms will inform how to measure, treat and ameliorate stress. Previous research has addressed cognitive mechanisms that may contribute to the experience of an event as stressful; namely, individuals become so immersed in the mental reenactment of stressful thoughts that the thought itself triggers a stress response and negative emotion. Mindful attention can prevent individuals from becoming immersed in the experience of stressful thoughts and setting off a stress response. Mindful attention involves recognizing one's thoughts are mental states that exist in one's mind, but not in the external world. When one treats thoughts this way, they arise and dissipate without a stress response. Currently, there is a lack of understanding about how preventing immersion in stressful thoughts through mindful attention reduces the individual's subjective experience of stress and its neural implementation. In an fMRI study, the present research aims to fill this gap by comparing neural activity when participants are fully absorbed in their thoughts about stressful scenarios (immersion perspective) to periods when they observe their thoughts as fleeting mental states (mindful perspective). This will shed light on cognitive mechanisms that contribute to mentally reenacting stressful events in thought. Researchers will also examine the neural underpinnings of reducing immersion in stressful thoughts. In addition, researchers will investigate how individual differences in trait absorption, rumination and mindfulness affect the tendency to become immersed in stressful thought. Participants who are more likely to ruminate or are higher in absorption may have more difficulty with mindful attention compared to those naturally high in mindfulness. Results of this project will increase our understanding of how to combat the negative effects of stress, how to treat stress related disorders, and how to identify persons at risk for stress related ailments, thereby potentially enabling prevention. This work may also shed light on the neural mechanisms of mindful attention and why there is a therapeutic effect of mindfulness-related treatments.