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Category: Project

Description: The overarching goal of this SOBC project is to use stages 0 and 1 of the NIH stage model to determine the extent to which various measures of self-regulation are assessing distinct or overlapping mechanisms involved in behavior change, and whether the measures perform similarly across populations, contexts, laboratories and age groups. The products of this project will be a systematic collection of validated and documented assays of specific self-regulation targets, and Mindfulness-Based Intervention (MBI) characteristics that engage those targets. These assays and tools will be shared with the field for incorporation in clinical studies and MBI development. Specifically, an interdisciplinary team of 12 basic science and clinical mindfulness researchers from 4 universities (Harvard, Brown, UMass, Georgetown) will (1) create a set of working groups that represent 3 domains of self-regulation (attention, emotion regulation, self-related processing), and (2) employ 4 sets of concurrent studies in order to complete the following aims: Aim 1: Identify putative self-regulation intervention targets by performing a comprehensive compilation and systematic evaluation of SR target performance in the existing (published) literature (Aim 1a) and from datasets belonging to Mindfulness Research Collaborative (MRC) members or their networks (Aim 1b). Aim 2: Identify the conditions that affect (promote or inhibit) self-regulation target engagement, by comparing target performance across variations in assays, samples/conditions, and interventions (i.e. inter- assay validity and inter-laboratory reliability) (Aim 2a) and leveraging 4 sets of existing or ongoing trials that offer variations of targets, samples, health behaviors, and interventions to assess which conditions maximally engage self-regulation targets (Aim 2b) with resulting impacts on health behaviors and medical regimen adherence. Aim 3: Pilot-test the most promising self-regulation targets and intervention modifications gained from the first 2 phases by inserting them into two ongoing MBI trials for managing chronic medical conditions with 2 different treatment variations in 2 different settings. The Mindfulness-Based Blood Pressure Reduction (MB-BP) study will assess self-regulation target engagement in a controlled research setting, while the MINDFUL-Primary Care (PC) study will assess the same targets in a primary care setting with clinical service providers. Aim 4: Test the relationship between target engagement and medical regimen adherence and health behaviors in larger continuations of the MB-BP and Mindful-PC studies. Aim 5: Bridge the science-to-service gap by disseminating the knowledge gained about high- (and low-) performing targets through collaborative publications, and by providing training to MBI service providers.