November 12, 2018
Gunes Sevinc, Sara W. Lazar
8 citations
Mindfulness meditation has been primarily studied within the context of individual’s psychological well being and/or in relation to it’s potential to enhance cognitive skills such as attention and working memory. However, in Buddhism, mindfulness is used as a tool to cultivate wholesome actions, and as a means to promote virtuous, prosocial qualities. In this article, we postulate that...
November 2, 2018
David R. Vago, Resh S Gupta, Sara W. Lazar
3 citations
One potential pathway by which mindfulness-based meditation improves health outcomes is through changes in cognitive functioning. A systematic review of randomized controlled trials of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) was conducted with a focus on assessing the state of the evidence for effects on cognitive processes and associated assays. Here, we comment on confounding issues...
Spirituality in Clinical Practice
August 2, 2018
Jonathan Greenberg, Tanya Datta, Benjamin G. Shapero et al.
37 citations
Depression is associated with high levels of mind-wandering and low levels of self-compassion. However, little is known about whether and how these two factors interact with one another to influence depressive symptoms. The current study examined the interaction between mind-wandering, self-compassion and depressive symptoms in a depressed sample and tested the effects of an eight-week...
Psychosomatic Medicine
April 11, 2018
Gunes Sevinc, Britta K. Hölzel, Javeria A. Hashmi et al.
65 citations
OBJECTIVE: We investigated common and dissociable neural and psychological correlates of two widely used meditation-based stress reduction programs. METHODS: Participants were randomized to the Relaxation Response (RR; n = 18; 56% female) or the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR; n = 16; 56% female) programs. Both programs use a "bodyscan" meditation; however, the RR program explicitly...
Brain Imaging and Behavior
March 17, 2018
Jonathan Greenberg, Victoria Romero, Seth Elkin-Frankston et al.
69 citations
Proactive interference occurs when previously relevant information interferes with retaining newer material. Overcoming proactive interference has been linked to the hippocampus and deemed critical for cognitive functioning. However, little is known about whether and how this ability can be improved or about the neural correlates of such improvement. Mindfulness training emphasizes focusing on...
Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science
2018
Nicholas T. van Dam, Marieke K. van Vugt, David R. Vago et al.
In response to our article, Davidson and Dahl offer commentary and advice regarding additional topics crucial to a comprehensive prescriptive agenda for future research on mindfulness and meditation. Their commentary raises further challenges and provides an important complement to our article. More consideration of these issues is especially welcome because limited space precluded us from...
Perspectives on Psychological Science
October 10, 2017
Nicholas T. van Dam, Marieke K. van Vugt, David R. Vago et al.
1,500 citations
During the past two decades, mindfulness meditation has gone from being a fringe topic of scientific investigation to being an occasional replacement for psychotherapy, tool of corporate well-being, widely implemented educational practice, and "key to building more resilient soldiers." Yet the mindfulness movement and empirical evidence supporting it have not gone without criticism....
European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience
November 9, 2016
Jonathan Greenberg, Benjamin G. Shapero, David Mischoulon et al.
17 citations
An impaired ability to suppress currently irrelevant mental-sets is a key cognitive deficit in depression. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) was specifically designed to help depressed individuals avoid getting caught in such irrelevant mental-sets. In the current study, a group assigned to MBCT plus treatment-as-usual (n = 22) exhibited significantly lower depression scores and...
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 =...
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...
Journal of Management
November 19, 2015
Darren Good, Christopher Lyddy, Theresa M. Glomb et al.
1,007 citations
Mindfulness research activity is surging within organizational science. Emerging evidence across multiple fields suggests that mindfulness is fundamentally connected to many aspects of workplace functioning, but this knowledge base has not been systematically integrated to date. This review coalesces the burgeoning body of mindfulness scholarship into a framework to guide mainstream management...
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...
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...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
2014
Omar Singleton, Britta K. Hölzel, Mark Vangel et al.
116 citations
Individuals can improve their levels of psychological well-being (PWB) through utilization of psychological interventions, including the practice of mindfulness meditation, which is defined as the non-judgmental awareness of experiences in the present moment. We recently reported that an 8-week-mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course lead to increases in gray matter concentration in...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
2013
Catherine E. Kerr, Matthew D. Sacchet, Sara W. Lazar et al.
329 citations
Using a common set of mindfulness exercises, mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) and mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT) have been shown to reduce distress in chronic pain and decrease risk of depression relapse. These standardized mindfulness (ST-Mindfulness) practices predominantly require attending to breath and body sensations. Here, we offer a novel view of ST-Mindfulness's...
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...
BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine
June 1, 2012
Gaelle Desbordes, Riccardo Barbieri, Luca Citi et al.
We collected electrocardiogram recordings as part of a larger randomized controlled trial of the effects of an eight-week meditation training intervention on healthy adults without prior meditation experience. Here we report data from eight subjects before and after the “mindful-attention” meditation intervention and the control intervention. The recordings were performed while the subjects...
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...
Journal of Psychiatric Practice
November 1, 2011
Jonathan P. Stange, Lori Eisner, Britta K. Hölzel et al.
83 citations
Bipolar disorder is associated with impairments in cognition, including difficulties in executive functioning, even when patients are euthymic (neither depressed nor manic). The purpose of this study was to assess changes in self-reported cognitive functioning in patients with bipolar disorder who participated in an open pilot trial of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). Following MBCT,...
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,...
CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics
April 2, 2011
Thilo Deckersbach, Britta K. Hölzel, Lori Eisner et al.
130 citations
INTRODUCTION: Bipolar disorder is characterized by recurrent episodes of depression and/or mania along with interepisodic mood symptoms that interfere with psychosocial functioning. Despite periods of symptomatic recovery, many individuals with bipolar disorder continue to experience substantial residual mood symptoms that often lead to the recurrence of mood episodes. AIMS: This study explored...
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...
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
March 1, 2010
Britta K. Hölzel, James Carmody, Karleyton C Evans et al.
Stress has significant adverse effects on health and is a risk factor for many illnesses. Neurobiological studies have implicated the amygdala as a brain structure crucial in stress responses. Whereas hyperactive amygdala function is often observed during stress conditions, cross-sectional reports of differences in gray matter structure have been less consistent. We conducted a longitudinal MRI...
Neuroreport
November 7, 2005
Sara W. Lazar, Catherine E. Kerr, Rachel H. Wasserman et al.
1,707 citations
Previous research indicates that long-term meditation practice is associated with altered resting electroencephalogram patterns, suggestive of long lasting changes in brain activity. We hypothesized that meditation practice might also be associated with changes in the brain's physical structure. Magnetic resonance imaging was used to assess cortical thickness in 20 participants with extensive...
Neuroreport
May 1, 2000
Sara W. Lazar, George Bush, Randy L. Gollub et al.
443 citations
Meditation is a conscious mental process that induces a set of integrated physiologic changes termed the relaxation response. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to identify and characterize the brain regions that are active during a simple form of meditation. Significant (p <10−7) signal increases were observed in the group-averaged data in the dorsolateral prefrontal and...