October 21, 2026Joshua Cain, Micah Alan Johnson, Amirvala Tavakoli et al.
preprint
Sustained contemplative practice confers well-documented psychological and physiological benefits, yet the experiential deepening that motivates practitioners can require many hours of practice, and mastery is not assured. Methods that accelerate training would broaden access to these benefits and could also test mechanism: the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), caudate, and anterior insula are...
Meditation practices have demonstrated numerous psychological and physiological benefits, but capturing the neural correlates of varying meditative depths remains challenging. In this study, we aimed to decode self-reported time-varying meditative depth in expert practitioners using electroencephalography (EEG). Expert Vipassana meditators ( n = 34) participated in 2 separate sessions....
This study aims to assess the validity of focused ultrasound (FUS) stimulation as a method for facilitating meditative development, which may have application for novice or intermediate meditators seeking to improve their practice. A growing body of work suggests profound benefits to health and wellbeing following consistent meditation practice; however, successfully maintaining such a practice...
Meditation practices have demonstrated numerous psychological and physiological benefits, yet capturing the neural correlates of varying meditative depths remains challenging. This study aimed to decode self-reported time-varying meditative depth in expert practitioners using EEG. Expert Vipassana meditators (n=34) participated in two separate sessions. Participants reported their meditative...
During the practice of meditation, the tendency of the mind to wander away from the object of focus is ubiquitous. The occurrence of mind wandering in the context of meditation provides individuals a unique and intimate opportunity to closely examine the nature of the wandering mind by cultivating an awareness of ongoing thought patterns, while simultaneously aiming to cultivate equanimity...
Cortical oscillations serve as an index of both sensory and cognitive processes and represent one of the most promising candidates for training and targeting the top-down mechanisms underlying executive functions. Research findings suggest that theta (θ) oscillations (3-7 Hz) recorded over frontal-midline electrodes are broadly associated with a number of higher-order cognitive processes and...
Rising from its contemplative and spiritual traditions, the science of meditation has seen huge growth over the last 30 years. This chapter reviews the classifications, phenomenology, neural correlates, and mechanisms of meditation. Meditation classification types are still varied and largely subjective. Broader models to describe meditation practice along multidimensional parameters may...
One outstanding question in the contemplative science literature relates to the direct impact of meditation experience on the monitoring of internal states and its respective correspondence with neural activity. In particular, to what extent does meditation influence the awareness, duration and frequency of the tendency of the mind to wander. To assess the relation between mind wandering and...
Le travail présenté dans cette thèse vise à nous amener à une meilleure compréhension des relations fines entre ce que nous expérimentons phénoménologiquement sous la forme d'états mentaux, et les effets sous-jacents et potentiellement causaux sur l'activité neuronale. Afin d'étendre notre compréhension scientifique de l'expérience consciente, nous avons d'abord mis l'accent sur un phénomène...