Scientific Reports
May 18, 2026
Estelle T. Higgins, William W. Busse, Danika R. Klaus et al.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) can improve symptoms of chronic inflammation; in asthma, improving asthma control and reducing airway inflammation. Understanding the neural mechanisms underlying these salubrious outcomes could help identify neuroimmune phenotypes and personalize interventions. Adults with asthma were randomized to 8 weeks of MBSR (n = 38) or a wait-list group (n =...
Human Brain Mapping
2025
Isaac N Treves, Aaron Kucyi, Madelynn Park et al.
8 citations
Trait mindfulness refers to one's disposition or tendency to pay attention to their experiences in the present moment, in a non-judgmental and accepting way. Trait mindfulness has been robustly associated with positive mental health outcomes, but its neural underpinnings are poorly understood. Prior resting-state fMRI studies have associated trait mindfulness with within- and between-network...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
July 14, 2024
Isaac N Treves, Aaron Kucyi, Madelynn Park et al.
1 citation
preprint
Abstract Introduction Trait mindfulness refers to one’s disposition or tendency to pay attention to their experiences in the present moment, in a non-judgmental and accepting way. Trait mindfulness has been robustly associated with positive mental health outcomes, but its neural underpinnings are poorly understood. Prior resting-state fMRI studies have associated trait mindfulness with within-...
Scientific Reports
September 24, 2023
Tammi R. A. Kral, Helen Y. Weng, Vikramjit Mitra et al.
25 citations
Mind-body interventions such as mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) may improve well-being by increasing awareness and regulation of physiological and cognitive states. However, it is unclear how practice may alter long-term, baseline physiological processes, and whether these changes reflect improved well-being. Using respiration rate (RR), which can be sensitive to effects of...
Nature. Mental health
July 10, 2023
Julieta Galante, Claire Friedrich, Napaporn Aeamla-Or et al.
102 citations
Mindfulness-based programmes (MBPs) are widely used to prevent mental ill-health that is becoming the leading global cause of morbidity. Evidence suggests beneficial average effects but wide variability. We aimed to confirm the effect of MBPs on psychological distress, and to understand whether and how baseline distress, gender, age, education, and dispositional mindfulness modify the effect of...
Journal of Environmental Psychology
October 1, 2022
Kevin M. Riordan, Donal G. Maccoon, B. Barrett et al.
Meditation training may promote pro-environmental behavior and related variables, though limited research has tested this experimentally. We investigated whether short- or long-term meditation training were associated with pro-environmental behavior, environmental attitudes, and sustainable well-being (i.e., well-being per unit consumption). In a cross-sectional comparison, long-term meditators...
Brain Behavior & Immunity - Health
September 14, 2022
Estelle T. Higgins, Richard J. Davidson, William W. Busse et al.
20 citations
Background: Psychological distress and comorbid psychopathology contribute to exacerbation risk in patients with asthma. Thus, interventions designed to reduce stress and improve emotion regulation, such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), may augment standard care. Few studies have addressed this question and a paucity of data exists to determine the ability of MBSR to impact...
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
August 1, 2022
Tammi R. A. Kral, Regina C Lapate, Ted Imhoff‐Smith et al.
Mindfulness meditation has been shown to increase resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) between the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), which is thought to reflect improvements in shifting attention to the present moment. However, prior research in long-term meditation practitioners lacked quantitative measures of attention that would provide a...
Science Advances
May 20, 2022
Tammi R. A. Kral, Kaley Davis, Cole Korponay et al.
67 citations
Studies purporting to show changes in brain structure following the popular, 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course are widely referenced despite major methodological limitations. Here, we present findings from a large, combined dataset of two, three-arm randomized controlled trials with active and waitlist (WL) control groups. Meditation-naïve participants ( n = 218) completed...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
September 17, 2021
Tammi R. A. Kral, Regina C Lapate, Ted Imhoff‐Smith et al.
preprint
Abstract Mindfulness meditation has been shown to increase resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) between the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), which is thought to reflect improvements in attention to the present moment. However, prior research in long-term meditation practitioners lacked quantitative measures of attention that would provide a...
Frontiers in Psychology
September 3, 2021
Daniel W Grupe, Jonah L. Stoller, Carmen Alonso et al.
43 citations
Unaddressed occupational stress and trauma contribute to elevated rates of mental illness and suicide in policing, and to violent and aggressive behavior that disproportionately impacts communities of color. Emerging evidence suggests mindfulness training with police may reduce stress and aggression and improve mental health, but there is limited evidence for changes in biological outcomes or...
medRxiv
June 16, 2021
Tammi R. A. Kral, Kaley Davis, Cole Korponay et al.
2 citations
preprint
Abstract Studies purporting to show changes in brain structure following the popular, eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course are widely referenced despite major methodological limitations. Here, we present findings from a large, combined dataset of two, three-arm randomized controlled trials with active and waitlist (WL) control groups. Meditation-naive participants (n=218)...
JMIR Mental Health
November 27, 2020
Simon B. Goldberg, Ted Imhoff‐Smith, Daniel M. Bolt et al.
104 citations
BACKGROUND: A growing number of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) suggest psychological benefits associated with meditation training delivered via mobile health. However, research in this area has primarily focused on mindfulness, only one of many meditative techniques. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of 2 versions of a self-guided, smartphone-based meditation app-the...
August 28, 2020
Simon B. Goldberg, Ted Imhoff‐Smith, Daniel M. Bolt et al.
BACKGROUND A growing number of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) suggest psychological benefits associated with meditation training delivered via mobile health. However, research in this area has primarily focused on mindfulness, only one of many meditative techniques. OBJECTIVE This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of 2 versions of a self-guided, smartphone-based meditation app—the...
January 30, 2020
Matthew J. Hirshberg, Simon B. Goldberg, Melissa A. Rosenkranz et al.
5 citations
preprint
Background: Mindfulness meditation has become a common method for reducing stress, stress-related psychopathology and some physical symptoms. As mindfulness programs become ubiquitous, concerns have been raised about their unknown potential for harm. We estimate multiple indices of harm following Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) on two primary outcomes: global psychological and...
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
July 1, 2019
Tammi R. A. Kral, Ted Imhoff‐Smith, D. Dean et al.
Abstract Mindfulness meditation training has been shown to increase resting-state functional connectivity between nodes of the frontoparietal executive control network (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex [DLPFC]) and the default mode network (posterior cingulate cortex [PCC]). We investigated whether these effects generalized to a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course and tested for...
Neuroimage
July 7, 2018
Tammi R. A. Kral, Brianna S. Schuyler, Jeanette A. Mumford et al.
ABSTRACT Meditation training can improve mood and emotion regulation, yet the neural mechanisms of these affective changes have yet to be fully elucidated. We evaluated the impact of long‐ and short‐term mindfulness meditation training on the amygdala response to emotional pictures in a healthy, non‐clinical population of adults using blood‐oxygen level dependent functional magnetic resonance...
Psychological Assessment
October 13, 2015
Simon B. Goldberg, Joseph Wielgosz, Cortland J. Dahl et al.
180 citations
The current study attempted a rigorous test of the construct validity of a widely used self-report measure of dispositional mindfulness, the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), within the context of an active controlled randomized trial (n = 130). The trial included three arms: mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), an active control condition that did not include instruction in...
Psychosomatic Medicine
July 1, 2003
Richard J. Davidson, Jon Kabat‐zinn, Jessica R. Schumacher et al.
2,924 citations
OBJECTIVE: The underlying changes in biological processes that are associated with reported changes in mental and physical health in response to meditation have not been systematically explored. We performed a randomized, controlled study on the effects on brain and immune function of a well-known and widely used 8-week clinical training program in mindfulness meditation applied in a work...