bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
October 26, 2024
Saampras Ganesan, Nicholas T. van Dam, Sunjeev K. Kamboj et al.
3 citations
preprint
Meditation can benefit well-being and mental health, but novices often struggle to effectively recognize and disengage from mental processes during meditation due to limited awareness, potentially diminishing meditation's benefits. We investigated whether personalised high-precision neurofeedback (NF) can improve disengagement from mental activity during meditation and enhance meditation's...
Scientific Reports
July 1, 2024
Jonathan N. Davies, Anna Faschinger, Julieta Galante et al.
45 citations
Meditation, yoga, guided imagery, and progressive relaxation are promoted as complementary approaches for health and wellbeing in the United States, but their uptake by different sociodemographic groups is unclear. This study assessed the prevalence and 20 year trends in the use of these practices in US adults between 2002-2022. We examined practice use and associations with sociodemographic...
March 19, 2024
Winky Wing Kay Lee, Christopher T. Mccaw, Nicholas T. van Dam
2 citations
Mindfulness has all but become a mainstay in modern education.Yet, despite the incredible enthusiasm and increased application inschools, there remains significant divergence between advocatesand critics. Advocates assert that mindfulness practice promotesindividual and societal health and well-being. Meanwhile, criticsquestion the intention, and the social and political implications...
Frontiers in Psychology
2024
Anya Daly, Rosa Ritunnano, Shaun Gallagher et al.
17 citations
Mental disorders are increasingly understood as involving complex alterations of self that emerge from dynamical interactions of constituent elements, including cognitive, bodily, affective, social, narrative, cultural and normative aspects and processes. An account of self that supports this view is the pattern theory of self (PTS). The PTS is a non-reductive account of the self, consistent...
Brain Research Bulletin
October 15, 2023
Saampras Ganesan, Bradford A. Moffat, Nicholas T. van Dam et al.
13 citations
Mapping the neurobiology of meditation has been bolstered by functional MRI (fMRI) research, with advancements in ultra-high field 7 Tesla fMRI further enhancing signal quality and neuroanatomical resolution. Here, we utilize 7 Tesla fMRI to examine the neural substrates of meditation and replicate existing widespread findings, after accounting for relevant physiological confounds. In this...
June 23, 2023
Nicholas Bowles, Jonathan N. Davies, Sarah Strohmaier et al.
10 citations
preprint
Mindfulness meditation is now practiced broadly in both religious and secular contexts, with numerous studies indicating potential benefits across a range of psychosocial domains. However, despite significant research effort, we still know little about dose-response effects – how frequently or for how longindividuals might need to practice mindfulness meditation to achieve certain practice...
Mindfulness
June 1, 2023
Toby J. Woods, Jennifer Windt, Lydia Brown et al.
15 citations
Abstract Objectives Contentless experience involves an absence of mental content such as thoughts and perceptions. It is often described as pure consciousness or complete stillness/silence, and is a goal in Shamatha, Thai Forest, and Stillness Meditation. This study examined the subjective character of the deepest experience of stillness/silence typically reported in each practice, and whether...
Mindfulness
April 13, 2023
Julieta Galante, Andrea Grabovac, Malcolm Wright et al.
82 citations
Abstract Millions of people globally have learned mindfulness meditation with the goal of improving health and well-being outcomes in both clinical and non-clinical contexts. An estimated half of these practitioners follow mindfulness teachers’ recommendations to continue regular meditation after completion of initial instruction, but it is unclear whether benefits are strengthened by regular...
March 15, 2023
Will Lawn, Xuejun Hao, Anna B. Konova et al.
preprint
Background: Despite the critical role of choice processes in substance use disorders, the neurobehavioral mechanisms guiding human decisions about drugs remain poorly understood. We adapted a neuroeconomic framework to characterize the neural encoding of subjective value (SV) for cannabis versus non-drug rewards (snacks) in near-daily cannabis users. We also assessed the impact of cannabis and...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
January 3, 2023
Saampras Ganesan, Bradford A. Moffat, Nicholas T. van Dam et al.
1 citation
preprint
Abstract Objectives Mapping the neurobiology of meditation using 3 Tesla functional MRI (fMRI) has burgeoned recently. However, limitations in signal quality and neuroanatomical resolution have impacted reliability and precision of extant findings. Although ultra-high strength 7 Tesla MRI overcomes these limitations, investigation of meditation using 7 Tesla fMRI is still in its infancy....
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
October 1, 2022
Saampras Ganesan, Emillie Beyer, Bradford A. Moffat et al.
Meditation trains the mind to focus attention towards an object or experience. Among different meditation techniques, focused attention meditation is considered foundational for more advanced practices. Despite renewed interest in its functional neural correlates, there is no unified neurocognitive model of focused attention meditation developed via quantitative synthesis of contemporary...
Mindfulness
2022
Nicholas Bowles, Jonathan N. Davies, Nicholas T. van Dam
54 citations
Meta-analyses of meditation studies have revealed mixed modest evidence of benefits across a range of outcomes. However, because this evidence-base is predominantly from brief interventions, it is unclear whether it accurately reflects how contemporary meditators practice or the dose-response relationship between amount of practice and outcome. This study sought to characterize how contemporary...
Psychological Medicine
December 7, 2020
Nicholas T. van Dam, Julieta Galante
19 citations
In a recent study of harm following the completion of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programs, the authors used a large observational dataset (n = 2155), alongside the active arm (n = 156) and wait-list arm (n = 118) of several amalgamated randomized controlled trials The authors interpret their results as 'strong evidence that MBSR is no more harmful than no treatment' (p. 8). While...
October 7, 2020
Noémie Le Pertel, Jonathan Fisher, Nicholas T. van Dam
ABSTRACT Transformative learning harnesses reflection to create deep change in adult learners. These changes can be embodied in our neurobiological and cardiovascular systems. These physiological embodiments of transformative learning require health of body and mind. Contemplative practices including embodied reflective practices are technologies that can support the reintegration of body,...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
April 14, 2019
J.R. Payne, Oliver Baell, Harry Geddes et al.
6 citations
preprint
Abstract Objectives Long-term meditation practice affects the brain’s ability to sustain attention. However, how this occurs is not well understood. Electroencephalography (EEG) studies have found that during dichotic oddball listening tasks, experienced meditators displayed altered attention-related neural markers including theta phase synchronisation (TPS) and event-related potentials (ERP;...
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....
Translational Psychiatry
March 21, 2017
Drew D. Kiraly, Sarah R. Horn, Nicholas T. van Dam et al.
182 citations
Abstract A subset of patients with depression have elevated levels of inflammatory cytokines, and some studies demonstrate interaction between inflammatory factors and treatment outcome. However, most studies focus on only a narrow subset of factors in a patient sample. In the current study, we analyzed broad immune profiles in blood from patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) at...
Contemporary Buddhism
May 1, 2011
Paul Grossman, Nicholas T. van Dam
540 citations
The Buddhist construct of mindfulness is a central element of mindfulness-based interventions and derives from a systematic phenomenological programme developed over several millennia to investigate subjective experience. Enthusiasm for ‘mindfulness’ in Western psychological and other science has resulted in proliferation of definitions, operationalizations and self-report inventories that...
Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental
August 1, 2008
Nicholas T Van Dam, Mitch Earleywine, Greg DiGiacomo
AbstractObjectiveTo examine psychosis‐like symptoms in users of legal and illicit drugs.MethodsSchizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) scores were compared in groups of people with different exposure to cannabis, with the use of other drugs serving as a covariate. Supplemental analyses compared users of legal and illicit drugs with cannabis use as a covariate.ResultsWeekly (n = 111) and...