Focused-attention meditation (FAM) and loving-kindness meditation (LKM) produce distinct patterns of brain activity during cognitive and emotional tasks. In a study of 44 male Chinese meditators, FAM practice was linked to expertise-related improvements in attention task performance and corresponding neural activation differences, while LKM did not carry over to attention performance. Both forms of meditation affected neural responses to affective pictures: during viewing of sad faces, FAM practitioners showed activation consistent with attention-related processing, whereas LKM experts showed responses more aligned with differentiating emotional contagion from compassion or emotional regulation. These findings provide the first report of distinct neural activity associated with these meditation forms during sustained attention and emotion processing.
Dextromethorphan (DXM), a common ingredient in cough medicine, is abused by adolescents and can cause euphoria, dissociation, hallucinations, and depressive symptoms with chronic use. Lycium barbarum (wolfberry), a traditional Chinese medicine for neurodegenerative diseases, may reduce depression-like behavior. In a rat study, DXM-treated animals showed increased depression-like and social anxiety-like behaviors after two weeks. Co-treatment with Lycium barbarum polysaccharide (LBP) reduced these adverse effects. Histological analysis revealed that LBP did not promote hippocampal neurogenesis alone but lessened the suppression of neurogenesis caused by DXM. These findings suggest wolfberry could be an adjunct treatment for mood disturbances during cough syrup abuse rehabilitation.