Research

Mindfulness Intervention: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and Wellness for Wellbeing

Target Outcomes: Affective executive functioning and depression symptoms

Summary: This study, funded by the National Center for Integrative and Complementary Health (NCCIH), is evaluating whether affective inhibition, affective shifting, and affective updating may serve as mechanisms of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. Better understanding how MBCT exerts its effects on depression symptoms is important in identifying how and for whom MBCT works.

Principal Investigator: Morganne Kraines, PhD

Mindfulness Intervention: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy

Target Health Outcomes: Health behaviors and medical regimen adherence impacted by self-regulation. 

Summary: The mechanisms of how mindfulness may influence health behaviors are not well understood. Funded by the National Institutes of Health Common Fund for the Science of Behavior Change, this set of systematic reviews and meta-analyses will pool the literature and evaluate consistency of evidence on impacts of mindfulness on self--regulation domains, including cognitive processes, self-related processes , and emotion regulation. 

Principal Investigator: Willoughby Britton

Mindfulness Intervention: Mindfulness-Based College

Target Health Outcomes: Health behaviors, mental health, and performance in emerging adults aged 18-24 years.

Summary: This study is evaluating the effects of a mindfulness-based intervention customized to direct participants attention and self-awareness to their relationship with determinants of well-being and performance in emerging adulthood, including diet, physical activity, alcohol and drug use, sleep, stress reactivity and social relationships. Funded in part by the Office of the Provost and an administrative supplement by the National Institutes of Health Common Fund Science of Behavior Change Initiative, and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, there is a major emphasis on evaluating plausible self-regulation mechanisms, including attention control, self-awareness and emotion regulation. 

Principal Investigator: Eric Loucks

Mindfulness Intervention: Mindfulness-Based Blood Pressure Reduction (MB-BP)

Target Health Outcome: Hypertension

Summary: This study is evaluating the effects of a mindfulness-based intervention customized to direct participants attention and self-awareness to their relationship with determinants of hypertension, including diet, physical activity, weight loss, alcohol consumption, stress reactivity, and anti-hypertensive medication use. Funded by the National Institutes of Health Common Fund Science of Behavior Change Initiative, and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, there is a major emphasis on evaluating plausible self-regulation mechanisms, including attention control, self-awareness and emotion regulation. 

Principal Investigator: Eric Loucks

Mindfulness Intervention: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Target Health Outcome: Psychosis

Summary: Patients with psychosis being discharged from a psychiatric hospital are at high risk for relapse and rehospitalization. Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, this project tested the effectiveness of ACT for inpatients with psychosis as delivered by typical hospital staff. In the randomized-controlled phase of the project, ACT was compared to a supportive intervention to examine its effects on post-discharge rehospitalization rates and relapse. Follow-up testing is planned to expand this research program so that it can be tested in a larger clinical trial to further examine issues related to effectiveness and implementation.

Principal Investigator: Brandon Gaudiano

Mindfulness Intervention: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Target Health Outcome: Depression. 

Summary: Depression is highly prevalent in primary care settings where access to evidence-based psychotherapy is very limited.  Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, this on-going project is focused on developing and testing the effects of a novel, ACT-based self-help intervention for depression that uses an innovative video format.  The videos feature real patients who describe their recovery from depression using mindfulness- and acceptance-based coping strategies. Dr. Gaudiano collaborates on this project with Dr. Lisa Uebelacker, who is a Brown University expert in primary care research.

Principal Investigator: Brandon Gaudiano

Mindfulness Intervention: Phone-delivered mindfulness training 

Target Health Outcomes: hypertensive disorders of pregnancy

Summary: Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are one of the greatest causes of death to mothers and babies. These disorders affect 1 out of every 10 pregnancies, the rate is increasing in the United States, and rate of recurrence is as high as 50%. Treatments to prevent hypertensive disorders of pregnancy from happening in future pregnancies are limited. There are currently no effective interventions to prevent hypertension recurrence in pregnancy that do not involve medications. The goal of the current study is to determine if phone-delivered mindfulness training is an acceptable intervention among pregnant women with histories of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.

Principal Investigator: Margeret Bublitz

Mindfulness Intervention: phone-delivered mindfulness training 

Target Health Outcomes: psychological distress in pregnant women at risk of pre-term delivery

Summary: In this project funded by the Rhode Island Foundation, Dr. Salmoirago-Blotcher, together with Dr. Bublitz, an expert on the impact of stress during pregnancy on adverse neonatal outcomes, seek to determine the impact of phone-delivered mindfulness training on stress and pregnancy outcomes among pregnant women at risk of pre-term delivery

Principal Investigator: Margeret Bublitz 

Mindfulness Program: app-based mindfulness program

Summary: The goal of this study is to see if the app-based mindfulness program, Unwinding Anxiety, can help individuals decrease worry to improve sleep.

Recruitment Information: Recruiting is Closed.
Contact person: Alana Deluty, Project Coordinator. [email protected]

Principal Investigator: Dr. Judson Brewer

Recruitment Information:

  • Are you 18 – 55 years old?
  • Are you right-handed?
  • Are you interested in meditation?

Additional information –

  • Not yet recruiting
  • 1 in-person visit with simultaneous fMRI-EEG
  • Compensation for time to complete assessment

Principal Investigator: Dr. Judson Brewer

Mindfulness Intervention: Reversibility Network Research  

Target Health Outcome: Early life adversity (ELA) on aging processes 

Summary: A growing body of both animal and human evidence now highlights the long-term and dramatic impacts that ELAs can have on later life outcomes, including a range of negative health and social consequences. Novel behavioral interventions are being developed, including mindfulness interventions, that hold promise and preliminary evidence to be effective when provided in mid- and later-life for people exposed to ELA. However, adult ELA interventions remain minimally researched, representing strong potential for discovery. Newer methodologies offer significantly greater opportunities to illuminate mechanisms linking ELA to adult outcomes. The Reversibility Network aims to galvanize researchers’ and public interest in promoting collaborative, interdisciplinary collaboration to discover key ways to reverse or remediate the health impacts of ELA.

Principal Investigator: Eric Loucks

Who We Are

The Research Unit of the Mindfulness Center is dedicated to performing high quality, methodologically rigorous research to investigate the impacts of mindfulness on health, and the underlying mechanisms.

What We Do

We are dedicated to using rigorous research to improve the health and well-being of our communities through education and training. In addition, we engage in strategic community partnerships investigating customized, evidence based mindfulness-based interventions for our local and global communities.

Ongoing Research: