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Advancing our Understanding and Treatment of Anxiety Through Bringing Together Facets of Conscious Experience and Brain Mechanisms: Awareness Meets the Default Mode Network

Overview:

This project aims to evaluate the conscious experience for identifying the neural correlates of mental states, ultimately helping to develop diagnostic and treatment tools for anxiety.

Abstract:

The tremendous subjectivity of individual conscious experience creates exciting opportunities for research, yet at the same time presents a number of challenges for understanding common elements that hinder flourishing, both personally and collectively. For example, all individuals experience anxiety, whether fleeting moments based on circumstances, or constantly throughout the day. Currently, the only way to measure anxiety is through self-report measures. There is a nascent field of research that has identified possible neurobiological markers that are associated with anxiety. Our goals are twofold: (1) to evaluate conscious experience of anxious and non-anxious states as they relate to default mode network activity and (2) to determine if changes in brain activity predict clinical outcomes in individuals with moderate to severe anxiety after mindfulness training (using the Unwinding Anxiety app).

A person with electrodes on their face sits smiling, surrounded by three others, including one holding wires, in a room with a relaxed atmosphere.

Broader Impact:

Identifying neural correlates of mental states will help to develop diagnostic and treatment tools for anxiety. Learning how digital therapeutics can target neural mechanisms of anxiety will help to further our understanding of how app-based mindfulness training changes the anxious brain.

Publications [11]

  • Roy, A. H., Hoge, E. A., Abrante, P., Druker, S., Liu, T., Brewer, J. A., (2021) “Clinical efficacy and psychological mechanisms of an app-based digital therapeutic for generalized anxiety disorder.” JMIR 23(12):e26987.

  • Brewer, J. A., Roy, A. H., (2021) “Can approaching anxiety like a habit lead to novel treatments?” American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine 15(5).

  • Roy, A. H., Druker, S., Hoge, E. A., Brewer, J. A., (2020) “Physician anxiety and burnout. Is mindfulness a solution? Symptom correlates and a pilot study of app-delivered mindfulness training,” JMIR mHealth uHealth 8(4):e15608.

  • Janes, A.C., Datko, M., Roy, A., Barton, B., Druker, S., Neal, C., Ohashi, K., Benoit, H., van Lutterveld, R., Brewer, J. A., (2019) “Quitting starts in the brain: a randomized controlled trial of app-based mindfulness shows decreases in neural responses to smoking cues that predict reductions in smoking.”

  • Brewer, J. A., (2019) “Mindfulness training for addictions: has neuroscience revealed a brain hack by which awareness subverts the addictive process?” Current Opinions in Psychology 28: 198–203.

  • Garrison, K. M., Zeffiro, T. A., Scheinost, D., Constable, R. T., and Brewer, J. A. (2015) “Meditation leads to reduced default mode network activity beyond an active task” Cognitive Affective Behavioral Neuroscience 15(3): 712-720.

  • Brewer, J. A. Garrison, K. M., and Whitfield-Gabrieli, S. (2013) “What about the “self” is processed in the posterior cingulate cortex?” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7: 647.

  • Garrison, K. M., Santoyo, J. F., Davis, J. H., Thornhill IV, T. A., Thompson, Kerr, C. E.,

  • Brewer, J. A. (2013) “Effortless awareness: using real-time neurofeedback to probe correlates of posterior cingulate cortex activity in meditators’ self-report.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7: 440.

  • Garrison, K. M., Scheinost, D., Worhunsky, P. D., Elwafi, H. M., Thornhill IV, T. A., Thompson, E., Saron, C., Desbordes, G., Kober, H., Hampson, M., Gray, J. R., Constable, R. T., Papademetris, X., Brewer, J. A. (2013) “Real-time fMRI links subjective experience with brain activity during focused attention” NeuroImage 81:110-118.

  • Brewer, J. A., P. D. Worhunsky, J. R. Gray, YY Tang, J. Weber, H. Kober. (2011) “Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity.” PNAS 108(50): 20254-9.

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