Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a type of meditation that encourages individuals to become aware of their in-the-moment senses and feelings. Our current study is a meta-analysis that explores how this form of meditation changes the brain, specifically what regions and networks are associated when partaking in this practice. We will be using the papers in the meta-analysis to develop a Meta-Analytical Connectivity Model (MACM) which allows the determination of the direct and connection of activations. The papers that we have included in our analysis examine mindfulness being performed in an array of tasks, allowing us to gain a comprehensive understanding of the brain regions involved.
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a mindfulness-based intervention which utilizes six core principles: being present, committed actions, cognitive defusion, acceptance, self-as-context, and personal values. Our research has previously investigated ACT intervention for individuals suffering from chronic pain and identified the brain regions which respond to this intervention. Due to the high efficacy of ACT (Kelson et al., 2019; Aytur et al., 2021) and its broad applicability across a range of health conditions, it is likely to be beneficial in helping people who suffer from stroke-related impairments in communication. Future directions involve testing the efficacy of ACT+RT in other populations in order to increase their participation and quality of life, as well as conducting fMRI pre- and post-intervention to determine functional connectivity changes