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Tim Gard

Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard University

14 papers in the library · 5,067 citations · publishing 2007-2020

Papers

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Hippocampal circuits underlie improvements in self‐reported anxiety following mindfulness training

Brain and Behavior September 18, 2020 Gunes Sevinc, Jonathan Greenberg, Britta K. Hölzel et al. 24 citations

Abstract Introduction Mindfulness meditation has successfully been applied to cultivate skills in self‐regulation of emotion, as it employs the unbiased present moment awareness of experience. This heightened attention to and awareness of sensory experience has been postulated to create an optimal therapeutic exposure condition and thereby improve extinction learning. We recently demonstrated...

Moving beyond mindfulness: Defining equanimity as an outcome measure in meditation and contemplative research

October 3, 2019 Gaelle Desbordes, Tim Gard, Elizabeth A Hoge et al. 6 citations

In light of a growing interest in contemplative practices such as meditation, the emerging field of contemplative science has been challenged to describe and objectively measure how these practices affect health and well-being. While “mindfulness” itself has been proposed as a measurable outcome of contemplative practices, this concept encompasses multiple components, some of which, as we...

Effects of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy on Body Awareness in Patients with Chronic Pain and Comorbid Depression

Frontiers in Psychology June 30, 2016 Marasha De Jong, Sara W. Lazar, Kiran Hug et al. 200 citations

Body awareness has been proposed as one of the major mechanisms of mindfulness interventions, and it has been shown that chronic pain and depression are associated with decreased levels of body awareness. We investigated the effect of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) on body awareness in patients with chronic pain and comorbid active depression compared to treatment as usual (TAU; N =...

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Fear Conditioning, and The Uncinate Fasciculus: A Pilot Study.

Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 2016 Britta K. Hölzel, Vincent Brunsch, Tim Gard et al.

Mindfulness has been suggested to impact emotional learning, but research on these processes is scarce. The classical fear conditioning/extinction/extinction retention paradigm is a well-known method for assessing emotional learning. The present study tested the impact of mindfulness training on fear conditioning and extinction memory and further investigated whether changes in white matter...

Interoception, contemplative practice, and health

Frontiers in Psychology June 9, 2015 Norman A. S. Farb, Jennifer Daubenmier, Cynthia Price et al. 630 citations

Interoception can be broadly defined as the sense of signals originating within the body. As such, interoception is critical for our sense of embodiment, motivation, and well-being. And yet, despite its importance, interoception remains poorly understood within modern science. This paper reviews interdisciplinary perspectives on interoception, with the goal of presenting a unified perspective...

The neural and psychological mechanisms of yoga and mindfulness meditation

2015 Tim Gard 2 citations

Pain can be modulated by several cognitive techniques, typically involving increased cognitive control and decreased sensory processing. Recently, it has been demonstrated that pain can also be attenuated by mindfulness. Here we investigate the underlying brain mechanisms by which the state of mindfulness reduces pain. Mindfulness practitioners and controls received unpleasant electric stimuli...

Greater widespread functional connectivity of the caudate in older adults who practice kripalu yoga and vipassana meditation than in controls.

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2015 Tim Gard, Maxime Taquet, Rohan Dixit et al.

There has been a growing interest in understanding how contemplative practices affect brain functional organization. However, most studies have restricted their exploration to predefined networks. Furthermore, scientific comparisons of different contemplative traditions are largely lacking. Here we explored differences in whole brain resting state functional connectivity between experienced...

Fluid intelligence and brain functional organization in aging yoga and meditation practitioners

DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) April 1, 2014 Tim Gard, Tim eGard, Maxime eTaquet et al. 104 citations

Numerous studies have documented the normal age-related decline of neural structure, function, and cognitive performance. Preliminary evidence suggests that meditation may reduce decline in specific cognitive domains and in brain structure. Here we extended this research by investigating the relation between age and fluid intelligence and resting state brain functional network architecture...

Potential self-regulatory mechanisms of yoga for psychological health.

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2014 Tim Gard, Jessica J Noggle, Crystal L Park et al.

Research suggesting the beneficial effects of yoga on myriad aspects of psychological health has proliferated in recent years, yet there is currently no overarching framework by which to understand yoga's potential beneficial effects. Here we provide a theoretical framework and systems-based network model of yoga that focuses on integration of top-down and bottom-up forms of self-regulation. We...

Neural mechanisms of symptom improvements in generalized anxiety disorder following mindfulness training

NeuroImage Clinical 2013 Britta K. Hölzel, Elizabeth A Hoge, Douglas N. Greve et al. 285 citations

Mindfulness training aims to impact emotion regulation. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms can be successfully addressed through mindfulness-based interventions. This preliminary study is the first to investigate neural mechanisms of symptom improvements in GAD following mindfulness training. Furthermore, we compared brain activation between GAD patients and healthy participants at...

Pain Attenuation through Mindfulness is Associated with Decreased Cognitive Control and Increased Sensory Processing in the Brain

Cerebral Cortex December 15, 2011 Tim Gard, Britta K. Hölzel, Alexander T. Sack et al. 275 citations

Pain can be modulated by several cognitive techniques, typically involving increased cognitive control and decreased sensory processing. Recently, it has been demonstrated that pain can also be attenuated by mindfulness. Here, we investigate the underlying brain mechanisms by which the state of mindfulness reduces pain. Mindfulness practitioners and controls received unpleasant electric stimuli...

How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective

Perspectives on Psychological Science October 14, 2011 Britta K. Hölzel, Sara W. Lazar, Tim Gard et al. 2,997 citations

Cultivation of mindfulness, the nonjudgmental awareness of experiences in the present moment, produces beneficial effects on well-being and ameliorates psychiatric and stress-related symptoms. Mindfulness meditation has therefore increasingly been incorporated into psychotherapeutic interventions. Although the number of publications in the field has sharply increased over the last two decades,...

Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density

Psychiatry Research November 10, 2010 Britta K. Hölzel, James Carmody, Mark Vangel et al.

Therapeutic interventions that incorporate training in mindfulness meditation have become increasingly popular, but to date, little is known about neural mechanisms associated with these interventions. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), one of the most widely used mindfulness training programs, has been reported to produce positive effects on psychological well-being and to ameliorate...

Investigation of mindfulness meditation practitioners with voxel-based morphometry

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience December 3, 2007 Britta K. Hölzel, Ulrich Ott, Tim Gard et al. 544 citations

Mindfulness meditators practice the non-judgmental observation of the ongoing stream of internal experiences as they arise. Using voxel-based morphometry, this study investigated MRI brain images of 20 mindfulness (Vipassana) meditators (mean practice 8.6 years; 2 h daily) and compared the regional gray matter concentration to that of non-meditators matched for sex, age, education and...