Are there effective emotion regulation strategies that do not depend on top-down cognitive control? 

“Let it be: Mindful-acceptance down-regulates pain and negative emotion”

Behavioral studies have shown that mindfulness- or acceptance-based treatments ameliorate depression, anxiety, addiction, and chronic pain; improve functionality and quality of life in cancer and other conditions. Brain imaging studies have examined individuals who were trained or regularly engage in mindfulness meditation. While promising, such studies do not directly address the use of mindful acceptance as an emotion regulation strategy in individuals who do not practice meditation, and findings could depend on cumulative effects of training or characteristics of individuals who seek it. We addressed this using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and adapting a well-established emotion regulation task to assess the effects of mindful acceptance on affective and neural responses in meditation-naïve adults. Identifying and understanding the mechanisms supporting such strategies could lead to improved treatments for emotionally vulnerable populations.

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