Abstract # 3099 The neural, genetic and behavioural effects of intensive meditation and yoga on prisoners with personality disorders

Sixty-five percent of prisoners have personality disorders. The aim of this study was to test if mind–body interventions can improve self-regulation in prisoners with personality disorders, and to elucidate the biological and psychological mechanisms of perceived benefits. Thirty prisoners with personality disorders were assigned to a mindfulness programme, to a yoga programme, or to a wait-list control group. Both mindfulness and yoga progammes were held at the same time and lasted 5 h per day on 5 consecutive days. At baseline and after the intervention, we measured inflammation-related gene expression; resting state brain activity with electroencephalography (EEG); risk-taking and attention with cognitive tasks; event-related potentials (ERPs) related to the attention task; and stress, emotion regulation and mindfulness with questionnaires. We expected that both yoga and mindfulness will improve self-regulation (i.e., executive attention, emotion regulation and self-awareness), reduce stress and risk-taking behaviour, downregulate inflammatory-related gene expression and increase alpha and theta power. We found no significant effects of interventions on any of these measures (p u003e .05). These non-significant results are likely due to a riot that happened at another unit on the final day of the interventions, which meant a full lockdown for all participants on that day. Additionally, patients with personality disorders are often resistant to treatment, thus a longer intervention might be necessary to observe changes in this population.