Stress can be defined as the psychological and bodily response to any situation that is perceived as threat or a challenge, which can have a profound negative influence on health when it occurs over a long period of time. One of the consequences of chronic stress on the body is systemic inflammation. Whereas inflammation is beneficial when it is brief and adequate (i.e., in response to physical danger), chronic stress leads to prolonged inflammation that is detrimental to health. More specifically, it increases the for inflammation-related mental and physical disorders such as anxiety, depression, asthma, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and neurodegenerative disorders. Hence, tackling the effect of stress on inflammatory dysregulation is a major research challenge. A promising approach to stress reduction and prevention is mindfulness, a type of mind-body intervention that consists of techniques that cultivate non-judgemental awareness of the experience in the present moment. It is not fully
clear how mindfulness interventions establish their positive effects, and the available knowledge appears poorly integrated and scattered over disciplines. 

The EU-funded INSPIRER project will develop and test a model that can reveal psychological, neural and immune mechanisms of mindfulness interventions. This model can further be applied to identify which interventions are the most effective in mitigating the effect of chronic stress and protecting human health. Mindfulness interventions seem to be able to counteract the effects of chronic stress, and to protect mental and physical health, but the underlying mechanisms are not yet fully understood. This fellowship aims to test and further develop an interdisciplinary framework (INSPIRER) that integrates psychological, neural, genomic and immune mechanisms of mindfulness interventions.

To this aim, three studies will be conducted.

First, a systematic review of the extant evidence that supports the INSPIRER will be conducted.

Second, long-term mindfulness meditators will be compared with non-meditators in terms of neural and immune outcome measures in a cross-sectional study.

Third, these outcomes will be used to compare an 8-week mindfulness intervention with an active control group through a randomised controlled trial.

The studies will apply methods from psychology (a computerised cognitive task and questionnaires), neuroscience (structural and functional MRI) and immunology (biomarkers of inflammation). In addition to testing the neural and immune mechanisms, the two empirical studies will include an experimental induction of either physiological stress or social stress to directly test if mindfulness increases resilience.

The INSPIRER has the potential to influence several research areas, as well to provide practical guidelines about which interventions are the most effective in mitigating the effects of chronic stress and concomitant inflammation.

We can only get the full picture of how mindfulness works by integrating these findings and testing hypotheses about their interactions. With this aim in mind, I am proposing a multi-level and interdisciplinary framework (INSPIRER) that integrates the proposed mechanisms of mindfulness interventions, and summarises how these mechanisms are thought to interact.

My long-term goal is to become an independent researcher and conduct rigorous studies of behavioural interventions that improve mental and physical health. I aspire to lead my own interdisciplinary research team — that would ideally be based in my home country Croatia — and to establish a high-quality mindfulness training centre that would implement evidenced based research findings. To reach these goals, this research project will provide me with training and experience that I otherwise would find difficult to obtain for several reasons; First, although mindfulness is a popular topic in psychology research, there are actually very few research teams that undertake an interdisciplinary approach to mindfulness. Therefore, interdisciplinary post-doctoral opportunities in the field of mindfulness are almost non-existent. Second, although I believe that I have made the most out of my previous research training, it is rare to find positions that offer extensive training in new skills for researchers in a post-PhD stage of the career. fMRI and inflammation training will help me become a uniquely skilled interdisciplinary researcher in the field of mindfulness and strengthen my success with future grant applications. It will be particularly important for my future employability to become proficient in data analysis in R because it is increasingly one of the requirements for postdoctoral positions. Third, this fellowship is a unique opportunity to further develop my mindfulness training skills while simultaneously leading my own research projects, which will open up opportunities to work in the private sector as a mindfulness instructor (e.g., in preparation of starting my own mindfulness centre). Time and financial restrictions would otherwise be prohibitive in improving my mindfulness trainer skills when working on a regular research postdoctoral position. Finally, this fellowship will help me to initiate a new program of research and result in several first-authored publications that will be a pillar of my future research career.

All in all, I believe that this fellowship will put me on the right path to become an outstanding applicant in highly competitive grants, such as the ERC starting grant, that would enable me to reach my long-term goals

MAIN ASSOCIATES:

Dr. Susan Maria Bögels
Professor in Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Amsterdam.

Dr. Jos Bosch
Associate professor in the Department of Psychology, section Clinical Psychology.

Prof. Guido van Wingen
Professor of Neuroimaging in Psychiatry, Amsterdam UMC.

Dr. Esther de Bruin
Associate professor and health care (GZ) psychologist at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences,
Research Institute of Child Development and Education (RICDE) at the University of Amsterdam