Association Between Dispositional Mindfulness, Clinical Characteristics, and Emotion Regulation in Women Entering Substance Use Disorder Treatment: an fMRI Study

Objectives Dispositional mindfulness (DM) is associated with emotion regulation (ER) in healthy populations and may be protective for individuals with substance use disorders (SUD). We tested hypotheses concerning the associations of DM with ER, mental health symptoms, drug use severity, and behavioral and brain metabolic responses during an emotional Go-Nogo task. Methods Women entering an SUD treatment program ( N = 245) self-reported on the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ); Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21); Addiction Severity Index (ASI); and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). A subgroup of 45 women completed the emotional Go-Nogo task while undergoing fMRI. Associations between DM and self-reported ER and clinical characteristics were tested in the full sample. Associations between DM and behavioral and neural responses during the Go-Nogo emotion regulation challenge were tested in the fMRI sub-sample. Results In the full sample, FFMQ correlated with DASS-stress ( r = − .43, p < .0001), DASS-depression ( r = − .52, p < .0001), DASS-anxiety ( r = − .32, p < .0001), DERS ( r = − .66, p < .0001), and ASI-Drug scores ( r = − .28, p < .0001). In the subsample, inhibition of the natural avoidance response while approaching a fearful stimulus recruited activity in the inferior frontal gyrus and the insular cortex (IC). Activity in the IC cluster was positively correlated with FFMQ scores ( r = 0.38, p = .015). FFMQ scores correlated with activation in the striatum and IC during face processing. Conclusions Among women with SUD, DM beneficially correlated with ER, mental-health symptoms, addiction severity, and recruitment of neural substrates underlying ER.