arXiv (Cornell University)
November 26, 2025
Jonas Mago, Josh Brahinsky, Mark Miller et al.
Criticality describes a regime between order and chaos that supports flexible yet stable information processing. Here we examine whether neural dynamics can be volitionally shifted toward criticality through the self-regulation of attention. We examined ten experienced practitioners of meditation during a 10-day retreat, comparing refined states of meditative absorption, called the jhanas, to...
Mindfulness
August 1, 2024
Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Kirk Warren Brown, Shaun Gallagher et al.
22 citations
Abstract For many centuries, scholars and philosophers from wisdom traditions in different cultures have reported and discussed non-self states of consciousness. These states can be both short-term (state, transitory) and long-term (trait, lasting) conditions. However, in psychology, the importance of a healthy self is usually emphasized, and some theorists have dismissed the idea of “selfless”...
Neuroscience of Consciousness
2024
Ruben Laukkonen, Evan Lewis-Healey, Luca Ghigliotti et al.
The contents of awareness can substantially change without any modification to the external world. Such effects are exemplified in binocular rivalry, where a different stimulus is presented to each eye causing instability in perception. This phenomenon has made binocular rivalry a quintessential method for studying consciousness and the necessary neural correlates for awareness. However, to...
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
October 1, 2023
Ruben Laukkonen, Margaret Webb, Carola Salvi et al.
Perhaps it is no accident that insight moments accompany some of humanity's most important discoveries in science, medicine, and art. Here we propose that feelings of insight play a central role in (heuristically) selecting an idea from the stream of consciousness by capturing attention and eliciting a sense of intuitive confidence permitting fast action under uncertainty. The mechanisms...
Neuropsychologia
September 28, 2023
Avijit Chowdhury, Remko Van Lutterveld, Ruben Laukkonen et al.
54 citations
Investigation of advanced mindfulness meditation "cessation" experiences using EEG spectral analysis in an intensively sampled case study.
Mindfulness
April 11, 2023
Shaun Gallagher, Antonino Raffone, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana et al.
49 citations
Abstract In this paper, we address core insights from Buddhist psychology about mind-body phenomena and the self, and we relate such insights to the notion of the self-pattern developed in the pattern theory of self. We emphasize the dynamic, temporal and enactive characteristics of the self-pattern, consistent with the core Buddhist notion of non-self. Although there is no one-to-one mapping...
International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHP
2023
Fabio Giommi, Prisca R. Bauer, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana et al.
70 citations
Clinical and neuroscientific evidence indicates that transdiagnostic processes contribute to the generation and maintenance of psychopathological symptoms and disorders. Rigidity (inflexibility) appears a core feature of most transdiagnostic pathological processes. Decreasing rigidity may prove important to restore and maintain mental health. One of the primary domains in which rigidity and...
Progress in Brain Research
2023
Ruben Laukkonen, Matthew D. Sacchet, Henk Barendregt et al.
56 citations
Absence of consciousness can occur due to a concussion, anesthetization, intoxication, epileptic seizure, or other fainting/syncope episode caused by lack of blood flow to the brain. However, some meditation practitioners also report that it is possible to undergo a total absence of consciousness during meditation, lasting up to 7 days, and that these "cessations" can be consistently induced....
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
September 1, 2021
Ruben Laukkonen, Heleen A. Slagter
183 citations
How profoundly can humans change their own minds? In this paper we offer a unifying account of deconstructive meditation under the predictive processing view. We start from simple axioms. First, the brain makes predictions based on past experience, both phylogenetic and ontogenetic. Second, deconstructive meditation brings one closer to the here and now by disengaging anticipatory processes. We...
bioRxiv
July 9, 2020
Josipa Alilovic, Heleen A. Slagter, Simon van Gaal
preprint
Predictions in the visual domain have been shown to modulate conscious access. Yet, little is known about how predictions may do so and to what extent they need to be consciously implemented to be effective. To address this, we administered an attentional blink (AB) task in which target 1 (T1) identity predicted target 2 (T2) identity, while participants rated their perceptual awareness of...
Scientific Reports
September 13, 2019
Catherine I. Andreu, Ismael Palacios, Cristóbal Moënne-Loccoz et al.
Response inhibition - the ability to suppress inappropriate thoughts and actions - is a fundamental aspect of cognitive control. Recent research suggests that mental training by meditation may improve cognitive control. Yet, it is still unclear if and how, at the neural level, long-term meditation practice may affect (emotional) response inhibition. The present study aimed to address this...
Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience
2019
Evert A. Boonstra, Heleen A. Slagter
19 citations
Karl Friston's free energy minimization has been received with great enthusiasm. With good reason: it not only makes the bold claim to a unifying theory of the brain, but it is presented as an a priori principle applicable to living systems in general. In this article, we set out to show how the breadth of scope of Friston's framework converges with the dialectics of Georg Hegel. Through an...
Neuroscience of Consciousness
2019
Erik L Meijs, Pim Mostert, Heleen A. Slagter et al.
Subjective experience can be influenced by top-down factors, such as expectations and stimulus relevance. Recently, it has been shown that expectations can enhance the likelihood that a stimulus is consciously reported, but the neural mechanisms supporting this enhancement are still unclear. We manipulated stimulus expectations within the attentional blink (AB) paradigm using letters and...
Mindfulness
December 1, 2017
Catherine I. Andreu, Cristóbal Moënne-Loccoz, Vladimir Lopez et al.
Performance monitoring—the ability to monitor ongoing performance to detect and correct errors—is a core component of cognitive control. Impairments in performance monitoring have been associated with several psychiatric disorders, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and substance use disorder. Recent research indicates that the practice of meditation, as a mental training...
Psychophysiology
February 12, 2016
Ayla Kruis, Heleen A. Slagter, David R. W. Bachhuber et al.
29 citations
A rapidly growing body of research suggests that meditation can change brain and cognitive functioning. Yet little is known about the neurochemical mechanisms underlying meditation-related changes in cognition. Here, we investigated the effects of meditation on spontaneous eyeblink rates (sEBR), a noninvasive peripheral correlate of striatal dopamine activity. Previous studies have shown a...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
2011
Heleen A. Slagter, Richard J. Davidson, Antoine Lutz
295 citations
Although the adult brain was once seen as a rather static organ, it is now clear that the organization of brain circuitry is constantly changing as a function of experience or learning. Yet, research also shows that learning is often specific to the trained stimuli and task, and does not improve performance on novel tasks, even very similar ones. This perspective examines the idea that...
Journal of Neuroscience
October 21, 2009
Antoine Lutz, Heleen A. Slagter, Nancy B. Rawlings et al.
499 citations
The capacity to stabilize the content of attention over time varies among individuals, and its impairment is a hallmark of several mental illnesses. Impairments in sustained attention in patients with attention disorders have been associated with increased trial-to-trial variability in reaction time and event-related potential deficits during attention tasks. At present, it is unclear whether...
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
September 29, 2008
Heleen A. Slagter, Antoine Lutz, Lawrence L. Greischar et al.
135 citations
The information processing capacity of the human mind is limited, as is evidenced by the attentional blink-a deficit in identifying the second of two targets (T1 and T2) presented in close succession. This deficit is thought to result from an overinvestment of limited resources in T1 processing. We previously reported that intensive mental training in a style of meditation aimed at reducing...
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
April 1, 2008
Antoine Lutz, Heleen A. Slagter, John D. Dunne et al.
Meditation can be conceptualized as a family of complex emotional and attentional regulatory training regimes developed for various ends, including the cultivation of well-being and emotional balance. Among these various practices, there are two styles that are commonly studied. One style, focused attention meditation, entails the voluntary focusing of attention on a chosen object. The other...
PLoS Biology
May 4, 2007
Heleen A. Slagter, Antoine Lutz, Lawrence L. Greischar et al.
762 citations
The information processing capacity of the human mind is limited, as is evidenced by the so-called "attentional-blink" deficit: When two targets (T1 and T2) embedded in a rapid stream of events are presented in close temporal proximity, the second target is often not seen. This deficit is believed to result from competition between the two targets for limited attentional resources. Here we...