ECCS Research Projects
Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for the Prevention of Perinatal Depression
This is a two-site study. Sherryl Goodman is the P.I. of the Emory University/Georgia site and Sona Dimidjian is the P.I. of the University of Colorado, Boulder Colorado site. The overarching goal of this proposal is to develop and test a brief behavioral group intervention (Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy; MBCT), which is designed to prevent depressive relapse and recurrence among high-risk pregnant women, with risk based on previous history of depression.
Effects of Meditation on Neural Processing of Stressful Stimuli
Collaborative fMRI project between Susan Bauer-Wu in the School of Nursing, Larry Barsalou in Psychology, Andy Butler in Rehabilitation Medicine, and others to explore whether meditation practice reduces affective responses to stressful linguistic stimuli.
Mechanisms of Meditation
This longitudinal study, headed by Chuck Raison, Teri Sivilli and Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, examines whether practicing compassion meditation will optimize physiological responses to psychosocial stress, with a focus on inflammatory signaling pathways and behavioral distress. We will also evaluate whether meditation practice affects naturalistic speech and behavior in ways that enhance emotional well being and health - not just of the meditation practitioner but of other people in his or her social environment.
Real-time Dynamics of Cognitive Processing during Meditation
This project uses fMRI to explore different brain states that occur during focused meditation, with an emphasis on utilizing first-person input from the subejcts. Wendy Hasenkamp is the PI on this project, in collaboration with Larry Barsalou and Christine Wilson-Mendenhall.
Project UPLIFT
Nancy Thompson has been studying the use of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for depression. The MBCT intervention materials developed by Dr. Thompson and her colleagues are known as UPLIFT and are designed for group delivery. The acronym stands for Using Practice and Learning to Increase Favorable Thoughts, referring both to mindfulness and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Dr. Thompson's work focuses in three areas: (1) using UPLIFT with populations at high risk of depression; (2) distance delivery of UPLIFT by web and telephone to hard-to-reach populations; and (3) extending UPLIFT from use in depression treatment to use in depression prevention. Her initial work was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is now funded by the National Institutes of Health and extends the use of UPLIFT beyond Georgia to Michigan, Texas, and Washington.
The Emory Meditation Practice Tradition and Experience (EMPTE) Inventory
Data from contemplative research continues to suggest that meditation-based interventions can have demonstrable effects on a host of psychological and physiological disorders. Despite these promising results, methodological issues, most notably the lack of tools that accurately assess research participants; meditation style and level of experience, greatly limit the reliability and generalizability of these findings. Thus, in order to address this shortcoming, our team (Brooke Dodson-Lavelle, John Dunne, Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, Charles Raison, Nancy Thompson) has set out to develop the EMPTE Inventory, a self-report measure that assesses research participants' meditation experience in a particular contemplative tradition. This inventory, which relies primarily on common contemporary Buddhist-based contemplative practices that are commonly selected for scientific investigation, will help researchers more clearly define subjects' style of practice, control for variations between style and experience, and may also lead to new findings associated with particular styles of practice. The successful development of this inventory promises to enhance the methodological rigor of this field by aiding researchers in determining what subjects are actually doing during a particular meditation session.
