bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
November 21, 2025
Joseph C. C. Chen, Gabriella Mace, Avery Ostrand et al.
preprint
Abstract Awe is a positive emotion often accompanied by sensations of vastness and unity, with known benefits for well-being and social behavior. However, its neural underpinnings remain poorly understood. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) and autonomic physiology in 23 healthy older participants while they watched a nature-based audiovisual film and subjectively rated awe events. Awe...
Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging
April 1, 2025
Joseph C. C. Chen, David A Ziegler
6 citations
Mindfulness meditation has numerous purported benefits for psychological well-being; however, problems such as adherence to mindfulness tasks, quality of mindfulness sessions, or dosage of mindfulness interventions may hinder individuals from accessing the purported benefits of mindfulness. Methodologies including closed-loop systems and real-time neurofeedback may provide tools to help bolster...
Brain Connectivity
March 1, 2021
Lucie Bréchet, David A Ziegler, Alexander J. Simon et al.
Sustained attention and working memory were improved in young adults after they engaged in a recently developed, closed-loop, digital meditation practice. Whether this type of meditation also has a sustained effect on dominant resting-state networks is currently unknown. In this study, we examined the resting brain states before and after a period of breath-focused, digital meditation training...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
2020
Helen Y. Weng, Jarrod A Lewis-Peacock, Frederick M Hecht et al.
9 citations
Meditation practices are often used to cultivate interoception or internally-oriented attention to bodily sensations, which may improve health via cognitive and emotional regulation of bodily signals. However, it remains unclear how meditation impacts internal attention (IA) states due to lack of measurement tools that can objectively assess mental states during meditation practice itself, and...
Nature Human Behaviour
June 3, 2019
David A Ziegler, Alexander J. Simon, Courtney L. Gallen et al.
Attention is a fundamental cognitive process that is critical for essentially all aspects of higher-order cognition and real-world activities. Younger generations have deeply embraced information technology and multitasking in their personal lives, school and the workplace, creating myriad challenges to their attention. While improving sustained attention in healthy young adults would be...