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Updated: Aug 23, 2025
Design and Implementation of an fMRI Study Examining Thought Suppression in Young Women with, and At-risk, for Depression
Published on: May 19, 2015
Mindfulness Training Changes Brain Dynamics During Depressive Rumination: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Anne Maj van der Velden1, Jacqueline Scholl2, Else-Marie Elmholdt3
1Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark; Department of Psychiatry, Oxford University and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Background:
Depression is a leading cause of disability worldwide and its prevalence is on the rise. One of the most debilitating aspects of depression is the dominance and persistence of depressive rumination, a state of mind that is linked to onset and recurrence of depression. Mindfulness meditation trains adaptive attention regulation and present-moment embodied awareness, skills that may be particularly useful during depressive mind states characterized by negative ruminative thoughts.
Methods:
In a randomized controlled functional magnetic resonance imaging study (N = 80), we looked at the neurocognitive mechanisms behind mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (n = 50) for recurrent depression compared with treatment as usual (n = 30) across experimentally induced states of rest, mindfulness practice and rumination, and the relationship with dispositional psychological processes.
Results:
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy compared with treatment as usual led to decreased salience network connectivity to the lingual gyrus during a ruminative state, and this change in salience network connectivity mediated improvements in the ability to sustain and control attention to body sensations.
Conclusions:
These findings showed that a clinically effective mindfulness intervention modulates neurocognitive functioning during depressive rumination and the ability to sustain attention to the body.
