Behavioral Sciences
August 26, 2026
Elisa Puvia, Luca Simione, Nima Gholizadeh et al.
Mortality salience research has played a central role in understanding responses to death awareness and existential threat. At the same time, relatively little research has examined whether long-term contemplative practice may shape affective, cognitive, and implicit responses to mortality-related stimuli. The present study investigated these processes in long-term contemplative practitioners...
Front Psychol
May 12, 2026
Salvatore G Chiarella, Matteo Laurenzi, Marianna D’Onofrio et al.
Folk attributions of consciousness to non-human systems often reveal what may be termed double bias. Within the standard distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness, non-human animals often receive low attributions of consciousness despite convergent behavioral and neurobiological evidence treated as relevant to subjective experience. By contrast, disembodied artificial intelligence...
Mindfulness
April 1, 2026
Vasil Kolev, Peter Malinowski, Antonino Raffone et al.
Abstract Objectives The main objective of the present study was to explore the effects of different types of meditation on the neurophysiologic mechanisms of pain processing. Method EEG responses to electric median nerve stimulation were recorded in short-term and long-term meditators (STM, LTM) during rest and three forms of meditation engaging attentional and affective regulation in different...
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
2026
Vasil Kolev, Kosio Beshkov, Peter Malinowski et al.
2 citations
The present study applied spectral Granger causality (GC) analysis to EEG recordings obtained during focused attention meditation (FAM), open monitoring meditation (OMM), and loving kindness meditation (LKM) in highly experienced meditators. The aim of the investigation was to characterize distinct connectivity signatures associated with each meditation style by examining the strength,...
Zygon
December 3, 2025
Antonino Raffone, Angela Tagini, Narayanan Srinivasan
36 citations
Mindfulness can be understood as the mental ability to focus on the direct and immediate perception or monitoring of the present moment with a state of open and nonjudgmental awareness. Descriptions of mindfulness and methods for cultivating it originated in eastern spiritual traditions. These suggest that mindfulness can be developed through meditation practice to increase positive qualities...
bioRxiv
July 7, 2025
Vasil Kolev, Kosio Beshkov, Peter Malinowski et al.
1 citation
preprint
The objective of the present study was to characterize the effects of long-term meditation (LTM) on directed connectivity patterns during resting-state and meditative brain states. Specifically, it was aimed to identify major cortical sources of information flow and target regions of information influx, and to reveal which frequency-specific oscillatory networks are critically involved in...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
July 4, 2025
Vasil Kolev, Kosio Beshkov, Peter Malinowski et al.
2 citations
preprint
ABSTRACT The present study applied spectral Granger causality analysis to electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings obtained during Focused Attention Meditation (FAM), Open Monitoring Meditation (OMM), and Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) in highly experienced meditators. The aim of the investigation was to uncover distinct connectivity signatures associated with each meditation style by...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
May 20, 2025
Vasil Kolev, Peter Malinowski, Antonino Raffone et al.
preprint
Objectives The main objective of the present study was to explore the effects of different types of meditation on the neurophysiologic mechanisms of pain processing.
Front Psychol
May 7, 2025
Monia D'Angiò, Luca Simione, Xerxes D. Arsiwalla et al.
seeks to explore classic debates in consciousness science, such as distinguishing between the most promising contemporary theories of consciousness, while also offering fresh perspectives and new insights into the progress of this field, including current reflections on its connection to artificial intelligence.One of the most debated issues in consciousness research concerns its neural...
Scientific Reports
March 27, 2025
Juliana Yordanova, Valentina Nicolardi, Peter Malinowski et al.
4 citations
The experience of pain is a combined product of bottom-up and top-down influences mediated by attentional and emotional factors. Meditation states and traits are characterized by enhanced attention/emotion regulation and expanded self-awareness that can be expected to modify pain processing. The main objective of the present study was to explore the effects of long-term meditation on neural...
Frontiers in Psychology
2025
Matteo Laurenzi, Antonino Raffone, Shaun Gallagher et al.
4 citations
In the last decades, research on animal consciousness has advanced significantly, fueled by interdisciplinary contributions. However, a critical dimension of animal experience remains underexplored: the self. While traditionally linked to human studies, research focused on the self in animals has often been framed dichotomously, distinguishing low-level, bodily, and affective aspects from...
Neuroscience of Consciousness
2025
Annalisa Pascarella, Philipp Thölke, David Meunier et al.
While the beneficial impacts of meditation are increasingly acknowledged, its underlying neural mechanisms remain poorly understood. We examined the electrophysiological brain signals of expert Buddhist monks during two established meditation methods known as Samatha and Vipassana, which employ focused attention and open-monitoring technique. By combining source-space magnetoencephalography...
Mindfulness
August 1, 2024
Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Kirk Warren Brown, Shaun Gallagher et al.
22 citations
Abstract For many centuries, scholars and philosophers from wisdom traditions in different cultures have reported and discussed non-self states of consciousness. These states can be both short-term (state, transitory) and long-term (trait, lasting) conditions. However, in psychology, the importance of a healthy self is usually emphasized, and some theorists have dismissed the idea of “selfless”...
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
May 1, 2024
Shaun Gallagher, Antonino Raffone, Salvatore M. Aglioti
Concepts of empathy, sympathy and compassion are often confused in a variety of literatures. This article proposes a pattern-theoretic approach to distinguishing compassion from empathy and sympathy. Drawing on psychology, Western philosophy, affective neuroscience, and contemplative science, we clarify the nature of compassion as a specific pattern of dynamically related factors that include...
Frontiers in Neuroscience
February 2, 2024
Antea D’Andrea, Pierpaolo Croce, Jordan O’Byrne et al.
13 citations
BackgroundThe investigation of mindfulness meditation practice, classically divided into focused attention meditation (FAM), and open monitoring meditation (OMM) styles, has seen a long tradition of theoretical, affective, neurophysiological and clinical studies. In particular, the high temporal resolution of magnetoencephalography (MEG) or electroencephalography (EEG) has been exploited to...
Mindfulness
April 11, 2023
Shaun Gallagher, Antonino Raffone, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana et al.
49 citations
Abstract In this paper, we address core insights from Buddhist psychology about mind-body phenomena and the self, and we relate such insights to the notion of the self-pattern developed in the pattern theory of self. We emphasize the dynamic, temporal and enactive characteristics of the self-pattern, consistent with the core Buddhist notion of non-self. Although there is no one-to-one mapping...
Brain Topography
March 28, 2023
Roberto Guidotti, Antea D’Andrea, Alessio Basti et al.
32 citations
Neuroimaging studies have provided evidence that extensive meditation practice modifies the functional and structural properties of the human brain, such as large-scale brain region interplay. However, it remains unclear how different meditation styles are involved in the modulation of these large-scale brain networks. Here, using machine learning and fMRI functional connectivity, we...
International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHP
2023
Fabio Giommi, Prisca R. Bauer, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana et al.
70 citations
Clinical and neuroscientific evidence indicates that transdiagnostic processes contribute to the generation and maintenance of psychopathological symptoms and disorders. Rigidity (inflexibility) appears a core feature of most transdiagnostic pathological processes. Decreasing rigidity may prove important to restore and maintain mental health. One of the primary domains in which rigidity and...
Consciousness and Cognition
2023
Salvatore G Chiarella, Luca Simione, Monia D'Angiò et al.
9 citations
In three experiments we investigated the effects of selective attention in iconic memory and fragile-visual short-term memory (VSTM), which have been related to phenomenal consciousness. We used a novel retro-cue paradigm with different delays (early vs late) and object priorities (high vs equal vs low), to investigate (a) attentional costs and benefits and the role of (b) bottom-up factors and...
Mindfulness
May 23, 2022
Evangelina Dominguez, Maria Casagrande, Antonino Raffone
12 citations
Abstract Objectives Autobiographical memory (AM) is linked to the construct of self, which is influenced by mindfulness training. Furthermore, both self-reference and AM can be affected by psychopathological conditions, such as depression. This article offers a critical review with a systematic search of the studies using different paradigms to investigate the effects of mindfulness training on...
Mindfulness
January 28, 2022
Valentina Nicolardi, Luca Simione, Domenico Scaringi et al.
28 citations
Abstract Objectives According to the core Buddhist psychology models of the “two arrows of pain” and “co-dependent origination,” pain is the resultant of bodily and mental factors, which can be regulated by meditation states and traits. Here we investigated how pain and the related aversion and identification (self-involvement) experiences are modulated by focused attention meditation (FAM),...
arXiv Preprint Archive
January 23, 2022
Henk Barendregt, Antonino Raffone
Consciousness will be introduced axiomatically, inspired by Buddhist insight meditation and psychology, logic in computer science, and cognitive neuroscience, as consisting of a stream of $configurations$ that is $compound$, $discrete$, and (non-deterministically) $computable$. Within this context the notions of self, concentration, mindfulness, and various forms of suffering can be defined. As...
Front Psychol
November 26, 2021
Antonino Raffone
4 citations
Grand Challenges in Consciousness Research Across Perception, Cognition, Self, and Emotion.
Brain Sciences
August 18, 2021
Roberto Guidotti, Cosimo Del Gratta, Mauro Gianni Perrucci et al.
27 citations
(1) The effects of intensive mental training based on meditation on the functional and structural organization of the human brain have been addressed by several neuroscientific studies. However, how large-scale connectivity patterns are affected by long-term practice of the main forms of meditation, Focused Attention (FA) and Open Monitoring (OM), as well as by aging, has not yet been...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
May 21, 2021
A. Accoto, Salvatore G Chiarella, Antonino Raffone et al.
The global pandemic caused by COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown have been widely recognized as traumatic events that pose threats to psychological well-being. Recent studies reported that during such traumatic events, women tend to be at greater risk than men for developing symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression. Several studies reported that a mindfulness-based stress reduction...