medRxiv
July 8, 2026
Paulina Clara Dagnino, Anne Maj van der Velden, Yonatan Sanz Perl et al.
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a heterogeneous mental disorder characterised by rumination. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is an evidence-based treatment developed to target rumination and recurrence risk. Ongoing studies have begun to identify neural changes associated with treatment effects. However, the low-dimensional organisation underlying whole-brain dynamics remains...
Mindfulness
September 2, 2025
Kevin Berryman, Yanli Lin, Sara W. Lazar et al.
4 citations
Abstract Ethical principles and societal regulations are critical to scientific integrity, but individual human factors greatly influence adherence to them. Personal virtues may play a significant role in reinforcing adherence to communal ethical scientific practices but remain largely unexplored. This paper examines how cultivating mindful ethical virtues through meditation could support...
Neuroscience Letters
May 23, 2025
Diane Joss, Gunes Sevinc, John W. Denninger et al.
1 citation
Meditation training has been shown to improve physical and mental health and promote neural plasticity, but more research is needed on the relationships between these effects. This study analyzed the Resting State Functional Connectivity (RSFC) of posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) among 94 chronically stressed but otherwise healthy adults randomized 1:1:1 to receive eight weeks of in-person...
Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging
April 1, 2025
Saampras Ganesan, Fernando A Barrios, Ishaan Batta et al.
6 citations
Meditation is a family of ancient and contemporary contemplative mind-body practices that can modulate psychological processes, awareness, and mental states. Over the last 40 years, clinical science has manualized meditation practices and designed various meditation interventions that have shown therapeutic efficacy for disorders including depression, pain, addiction, and anxiety. Over the past...
Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging
April 1, 2025
Todd S. Braver, Sara W. Lazar
Introduction to the Special Issue on Cognitive Neuroscience of Mindfulness.
Journal of Mood and Anxiety Disorders
March 1, 2025
Diane Joss, Michael Datko, Charisma I Washington et al.
5 citations
Self-judgment is a trans-diagnostic symptom among various psychological disorders, therefore can be a therapeutic target for many common psychiatric conditions. Self-judgment often arises among those who experienced childhood maltreatment, which increases the risk for developing comorbid psychiatric disorders that are resistant to traditional pharmacological and psychological interventions....
Mindfulness
September 1, 2024
Diane Joss, Martin H. Teicher, Sara W. Lazar
11 citations
Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been shown to be beneficial for young adults with adverse childhood experiences (ACE), but the temporal course of the therapeutic effects is still not well understood. This study aimed to investigate MBI-induced weekly changes and long-term effects in trait mindfulness and psychological symptoms. This study analyzed longitudinal data from a...
Journal of Affective Disorders Reports
March 30, 2024
Diane Joss, Martin H. Teicher, Sara W. Lazar
Background: Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) has detrimental impacts on neural development, especially hippocampal morphometry. Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI) has been shown to induce adaptive hippocampal changes especially at the subiculum. The present study aims to investigate the effects of MBI on subiculum volumes among ACE survivors, as well as the effects on episodic memory as a...
Journal of Affective Disorders Reports
2024
Diane Joss, Junjie Lu, Martin H. Teicher et al.
16 citations
Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) has been shown to have detrimental impact on amygdala structure. Prior research found that adaptive psychological changes after Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI) were associated with amygdala volumetric changes. The present study aims to further investigate whether such effects also occur among ACE survivors and whether the effects are unique to MBI. A...
Biological Psychiatry
2024
Elizabeth A Hoge, Caroline H Armstrong, Mihriye Mete et al.
10 citations
Biological markers for anxiety disorders may further understanding of disorder pathophysiology and suggest potential targeted treatments. The fear-potentiated startle (FPS) (a measure of startle to predictable threat) and anxiety-potentiated startle (APS) (startle to unpredictable threat) laboratory paradigm has been used to detect physiological differences in individuals with anxiety disorders...
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
October 1, 2023
Kevin Berryman, Sara W. Lazar, Jakob Hohwy
11 citations
Contemplative practices are a staple of modern life and have historically been intertwined with morality. However, do these practices in fact improve our morality? The answer remains unclear because the science of contemplative practices has focused on unidimensional aspects of morality, which do not align with the type of interdependent moral functioning these practices aspire to cultivate....
Biological Psychiatry
February 1, 2023
Anne Maj van der Velden, Jacqueline Scholl, Else-Marie Elmholdt et al.
Depression is a leading cause of disability worldwide and its prevalence is on the rise. One of the most debilitating aspects of depression is the dominance and persistence of depressive rumination, a state of mind that is linked to onset and recurrence of depression. Mindfulness meditation trains adaptive attention regulation and present-moment embodied awareness, skills that may be...
Frontiers in Psychology
November 22, 2021
Willoughby B. Britton, Gaelle Desbordes, Rebecca L. Acabchuk et al.
77 citations
Self-related processes (SRPs) have been theorized as key mechanisms of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs), but the evidence supporting these theories is currently unclear. This evidence map introduces a comprehensive framework for different types of SRPs, and how they are theorized to function as mechanisms of MBIs (target identification). The evidence map then assesses SRP target...
Neuropsychology Review
August 4, 2021
Tim Whitfield, Thorsten Barnhofer, Rebecca L. Acabchuk et al.
193 citations
Mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) are increasingly utilized to improve mental health. Interest in the putative effects of MBPs on cognitive function is also growing. This is the first meta-analysis of objective cognitive outcomes across multiple domains from randomized MBP studies of adults. Seven databases were systematically searched to January 2020. Fifty-six unique studies (n = 2,931) were...
Brain Science
May 30, 2021
Omar Singleton, Max Newlon, Andres Fossas et al.
12 citations
Jane Loevinger’s theory of adult development, termed ego development (1966) and more recently maturity development, provides a useful framework for understanding the development of the self throughout the lifespan. However, few studies have investigated its neural correlates. In the present study, we use structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate the neural...
Brain Sciences
April 29, 2021
Kathryn J Devaney, Emily J Levin, Vaibhav Tripathi et al.
Meditation experience has previously been shown to improve performance on behavioral assessments of attention, but the neural bases of this improvement are unknown. Two prominent, strongly competing networks exist in the human cortex: a dorsal attention network, that is activated during focused attention, and a default mode network, that is suppressed during attentionally demanding tasks. Prior...
Alzheimer s & Dementia
December 1, 2020
Tim Whitfield, Thorsten Barnhofer, Rebecca L. Acabchuk et al.
6 citations
Abstract Background The primary focus of mindfulness‐based program (MBP) research to date has been on mental health. More recently, attention has turned to putative effects on cognition. An evidence synthesis is required to answer the key question of ‘Do MBPs confer cognitive benefit, and if so, for whom?’ A particularly crucial distinction is whether benefits differ according to individuals’...
Harvard Review of Psychiatry
November 1, 2020
Zev Schuman-Olivier, Marcelo Trombka, David Lovas et al.
Abstract Initiating and maintaining behavior change is key to the prevention and treatment of most preventable chronic medical and psychiatric illnesses. The cultivation of mindfulness, involving acceptance and nonjudgment of present-moment experience, often results in transformative health behavior change. Neural systems involved in motivation and learning have an important role to play. A...
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...
Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience
May 28, 2020
Anna Xu, Chloe S. Zimmerman, Sara W. Lazar et al.
Objective: Tai chi (TC), a contemplative practice combining slow movements and deep breathing, has been shown to be clinically effective in alleviating depressive symptoms. Feelings of fatigue or low vitality often accompany major depressive disorder (MDD) though they are commonly overlooked and not well understood neurologically. By using resting state functional connectivity (rs-FC) using the...
Network neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)
2020
Marzie Saghayi, Jonathan Greenberg, Christopher O'Grady et al.
Adherence determines the success and benefits of mental training (e.g., meditation) programs. It is unclear why some participants engage more actively in programs for mental training than others. Understanding neurobiological factors that predict adherence is necessary for understanding elements of learning and to inform better designs for new learning regimens. Clustering patterns in brain...
Frontiers in Psychology
October 23, 2019
Diane Joss, Alaptagin Khan, Sara W. Lazar et al.
63 citations
Individuals who were maltreated during childhood are faced with increased risks for developing various psychological symptoms that are particularly resistant to traditional treatments. This pilot study investigated the effects of a mindfulness based behavioral intervention for young adults with childhood maltreatment history. This study looked at self-report psychological questionnaires from 20...
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...
Current Opinion in Psychology
August 1, 2019
David R. Vago, Resh S Gupta, Sara W. Lazar
One potential pathway by which mindfulness-based meditation improves health outcomes is through changes in cognitive functioning. Here, we summarize and comment upon three systematic reviews conducted over the last seven years that have had the goal of identifying the impact of mindfulness on cognitive outcomes. In our analysis, we identified a number of methodological limitations and potential...
Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience
July 2, 2019
Danilo Forghieri Santaella, Joana Bisol Balardin, Rui F. Afonso et al.
37 citations
Large-scale brain networks exhibit changes in functional connectivity during the aging process. Recent literature data suggests that Yoga and other contemplative practices may revert, at least in part, some of the aging effects in brain functional connectivity, including of the Default Mode Network (DMN). The aim of this cross-sectional investigation was to compare resting-state functional...