Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging
April 1, 2025
Vaibhav Tripathi, Ishaan Batta, Andre Zamani et al.
23 citations
The default mode network (DMN) is linked to self-referential thinking, memory, and goal-directed cognition. Its functional connectivity with frontoparietal networks involved in attention and executive control may indicate cognitive health. This review examines DMN connectivity metrics as potential biomarkers across states like attention, mind wandering, and meditation, and in conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, depression, and ADHD. It also addresses the reliability of network estimation and offers recommendations for using functional connectivity measures as biomarkers of cognitive health.
American Journal of Psychiatry
July 28, 2022
Joseph Wielgosz, Tammi R. A. Kral, D. Perlman et al.
21 citations
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) reduced neural pain responses in healthy adults compared to an active control program. In a randomized trial with 115 participants, MBSR produced a moderate decrease in the neurologic pain signature (NPS) relative to a health enhancement program (Cohen's d=-0.43) and from before to after the intervention (d=-0.47). Subjective pain unpleasantness also decreased modestly in both MBSR and the active control compared to a waiting list. Long-term meditators reported lower pain than nonmeditators but showed no difference in neural pain signatures. Among long-term meditators, cumulative practice during intensive retreats, but not daily practice, was linked to reduced stimulus-independent pain processing (r=-0.65).
Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging
April 1, 2025
Jarrod A Lewis-Peacock, Tor D Wager, Todd S. Braver
2 citations
Using multivariate predictive models to identify brain mechanisms underlying the benefits of mindfulness meditation is a promising methodology that departs from conventional brain mapping. Two strategies—state induction and neuromarker identification—are highlighted, with examples distinguishing focused attention from mind wandering and showing effects of mindfulness interventions on somatic pain and drug-related cravings. Future research must address tradeoffs between personalized and population-based predictive modeling.
June 18, 2024
Jarrod A Lewis-Peacock, Tor D Wager, Todd S. Braver
preprint
Multivariate predictive models—such as multivariate decoding, predictive classification, and model-based analyses—offer a powerful alternative to conventional brain mapping for studying the neural mechanisms behind mindfulness and meditation. These approaches can distinguish internally directed focused attention from mind wandering and reveal how mindfulness interventions affect somatic pain and drug-related cravings. Future research must weigh tradeoffs between personalized and population-based predictive modeling.
April 14, 2024
Vaibhav Tripathi, Ishaan Batta, Andre Zamani et al.
preprint
The default mode network (DMN) supports self-referential thinking, memory, and understanding others. Its functional connectivity with frontoparietal and dorsal attention networks is anti-correlated: when attention turns outward, the DMN deactivates. This switching between internal and external modes, mediated by salience networks, may indicate cognitive health. Resting-state fMRI enables large-scale datasets for standardized connectivity benchmarks. This review examines DMN connectivity metrics as potential biomarkers of cognitive state in attention, mind wandering, meditation, and clinical conditions like anxiety, depression, ADHD, and PTSD. It also addresses reliability issues and offers recommendations for using connectivity measures as biomarkers of cognitive health.
The lancet. Psychiatry
May 1, 2026
Joseph J Taylor, Balázs Szigeti, Noah D Silverberg et al.
Placebo effects remain a major paradox in medical research, with more data available from placebo-controlled trials than on any treatment, yet little deep analysis of how they are measured, appraised, and interpreted. This review shifts focus from clinical practice to clinical trials, examining established and emerging approaches for managing placebo effects in randomized controlled trials. It highlights three key challenges in contemporary psychiatric research: blinding and expectancy in psychedelic trials, large placebo responses in interventional psychiatry trials (device or procedure-based treatments), and the implications of overlapping neurobiological mechanisms between placebo effects and psychiatric treatments.
Biological Psychiatry
January 1, 2025
Gabriel Riegner, Jon G Dean, Tor D Wager et al.
Pain is shaped by experience, thoughts, and expectations rather than being a direct readout of injury. The placebo effect reduces pain through mechanisms shared with active treatments, and some have assumed mindfulness meditation works the same way. Using brain-based multivariate pattern analysis across two clinical trials with 115 healthy participants, mindfulness meditation produced significantly greater reductions in pain intensity and unpleasantness ratings, and lowered nociceptive-specific and negative affective brain signatures, compared to placebo cream, sham mindfulness, and a control. Placebo cream specifically lowered the placebo-based signature. The results show mindfulness and placebo engage distinct neural pain signatures to reduce pain.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
September 30, 2021
Yoni K Ashar, Jessica R Andrews-Hanna, Joan Halifax et al.
A four-week compassion meditation program delivered via smartphone increased brain activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) when participants listened to stories of suffering others, compared with a condition that controlled for increased familiarity with suffering. Among compassion meditation participants, greater increases in mOFC activity correlated with greater self-reported compassion-related feelings and attributions. Compared with a placebo condition (presented as oxytocin), the meditation group showed a similar mOFC increase at an uncorrected statistical threshold. The authors conclude that the mOFC is an important brain mechanism of compassion meditation, that its effects are not explained by familiarity, and that they are partly explained by placebo effects.