Consciousness and Cognition
February 1, 2019
Oussama Abdoun, Jelle Zorn, Stefano Poletti et al.
44 citations
Empirical descriptions of the phenomenology of meditation states rely on practitioners' ability to provide accurate information on their experience. We present a meditation training protocol that was designed to equip naive participants with a theoretical background and experiential knowledge that would enable them to share their experience. Subsequently, novices carried on with daily practice...
January 24, 2019
Antoine Lutz, Jérémie Mattout, Giuseppe Pagnoni
7 citations
The surge of interest about mindfulness meditation is associated with a growing empirical evidence about its impact on the mind and body. Yet, despite promising phenomenological or psychological models of mindfulness, a general mechanistic understanding of meditation steeped in neuroscience is still lacking. In parallel, predictive processing approaches to the mind are rapidly developing in the...
Brain Stimulation
November 1, 2018
Olivier Bodart, Matteo Fecchio, Marcello Massimini 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. Previous studies have demonstrated that meditation may have positive effects on self-awareness, emotion regulation, attention processes, and also structural neuroplasticity [1]. However, the...
European Journal of Neuroscience
August 24, 2018
Daniela Dentico, David R. W. Bachhuber, Brady A. Riedner et al.
18 citations
Our recent finding of a meditation-related increase in low-frequency NREM sleep EEG oscillatory activities peaking in the theta-alpha range (4-12 Hz) was not predicted. From a consolidated body of research on sleep homeostasis, we would expect a change peaking in slow wave activity (1-4 Hz) following an intense meditation session. Here we compared these changes in sleep with the post-meditation...
Neuropsychologia
July 21, 2018
Enrico Fucci, Oussama Abdoun, Anne Caclin et al.
58 citations
Non-dual meditation aims to undo maladaptive cognitive and affective patterns by recognizing their constructed and transient nature. We previously found high-amplitude spontaneous gamma (25-40 Hz) oscillatory activity during such practice. Nonetheless, it is unclear how this meditation state differs from other practices, in terms of perceptual information processing. Here, we hypothesized that...
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...
Alzheimer s Research & Therapy
June 22, 2018
Gaël Chételat, Antoine Lutz, Eider M. Arenaza‐Urquijo et al.
106 citations
Psycho-affective states or traits such as stress, depression, anxiety and neuroticism are known to affect sleep, cognition and mental health and well-being in aging populations and to be associated with increased risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Mental training for stress reduction and emotional and attentional regulation through meditation practice might help reduce these adverse factors. So...
Alzheimer s & Dementia Translational Research & Clinical Interventions
2018
Géraldine Poisnel, Eider M. Arenaza‐Urquijo, Fabienne Collette et al.
103 citations
INTRODUCTION: The Age-Well clinical trial is an ongoing monocentric, randomized, controlled trial aiming to assess an 18-month preventive meditation-based intervention directly targeting the attentional and emotional dimensions of aging to promote mental health and well-being in elderly people. METHODS: One hundred thirty-seven cognitively unimpaired older adults are randomized to either an...
Alzheimer s & Dementia Translational Research & Clinical Interventions
2018
Antoine Lutz, Olga Klimecki, Fabienne Collette et al.
18 citations
INTRODUCTION: The Age-Well observational, cross-sectional study investigates the affective and cognitive mechanisms of meditation expertise with behavioral, neuroimaging, sleep, and biological measures sensitive to aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD). METHODS: Thirty cognitively unimpaired individuals aged 65 years or older with at least 10,000 hours of practice in mindfulness meditation (MM)...
Scientific Reports
October 17, 2017
Constanza Baquedano, Rodrigo C. Vergara, Vladimir Lopez et al.
34 citations
Immersing ourselves in food images can sometimes make it feel subjectively real, as if the actual food were right in front of us. Excessive self-immersion into mental content, however, is a hallmark of psychological distress, and of several psychiatric conditions. Being aware that imagined events are not necessarily an accurate depiction of reality is a key feature of psychotherapeutic...
Scientific Reports
August 25, 2017
Gaël Chételat, Florence Mezenge, Clémence Tomadesso et al.
67 citations
Aging is associated with progressive cerebral volume and glucose metabolism decreases. Conditions such as stress and sleep difficulties exacerbate these changes and are risk factors for Alzheimer's disease. Meditation practice, aiming towards stress reduction and emotion regulation, can downregulate these adverse factors. In this pilot study, we explored the possibility that lifelong meditation...
Connectomics in neuroimaging : First International Workshop, CNI 2017, held in conjunction with MICCAI 2017, Quebec City, QC, Canada, September 14, 2017, proceedings. CNI (Workshop) (1st : 2017 : Quebec, Quebec)
2017
Yuan Wang, Moo K Chung, Daniela Dentico et al.
Meditation practice as a non-pharmacological intervention to provide health related benefits has generated much neuroscientific interest in its effects on brain activity. Electroencephalogram (EEG), an imaging modality known for its inexpensive procedure and excellent temporal resolution, is often utilized to investigate the neuroplastic effects of meditation under various experimental...
Scientific Reports
June 7, 2016
Joseph Wielgosz, Brianna S. Schuyler, Antoine Lutz et al.
124 citations
Respiration rate is known to correlate with aspects of psychological well-being, and attention to respiration is a central component of mindfulness meditation training. Both traditional contemplative systems and recent empirical evidence support an association between formal mindfulness practice and decreased respiration rate. However, the question of whether long-term mindfulness training is...
PLoS One
February 22, 2016
Daniela Dentico, Fabio Ferrarelli, Brady A. Riedner et al.
43 citations
STUDY OBJECTIVES: We have recently shown higher parietal-occipital EEG gamma activity during sleep in long-term meditators compared to meditation-naive individuals. This gamma increase was specific for NREM sleep, was present throughout the entire night and correlated with meditation expertise, thus suggesting underlying long-lasting neuroplastic changes induced through prolonged training. The...
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...
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...
American Psychologist
October 1, 2015
Antoine Lutz, Amishi P. Jha, John D. Dunne et al.
724 citations
There has been a great increase in literature concerned with the effects of a variety of mental training regimes that generally fall within what might be called contemplative practices, and a majority of these studies have focused on mindfulness. Mindfulness meditation practices can be conceptualized as a set of attention-based, regulatory, and self-inquiry training regimes cultivated for...
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
July 28, 2015
Cortland J. Dahl, Antoine Lutz, Richard J. Davidson
Scientific research highlights the central role of specific psychological processes, in particular those related to the self, in various forms of human suffering and flourishing. This view is shared by Buddhism and other contemplative and humanistic traditions, which have developed meditation practices to regulate these processes. Building on a previous paper in this journal, we propose a novel...
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
April 17, 2014
Benjamin Baird, Jonathan Smallwood, Antoine Lutz et al.
169 citations
The mind flows in a "stream of consciousness," which often neglects immediate sensory input in favor of focusing on intrinsic, self-generated thoughts or images. Although considerable research has documented the disruptive influences of task-unrelated thought for perceptual processing and task performance, the brain dynamics associated with these phenomena are not well understood. Here we...
PLoS One
2014
Donal G. Maccoon, Katherine A Maclean, Richard J. Davidson et al.
97 citations
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a secular form of meditation training. The vast majority of the extant literature investigating the health effects of mindfulness interventions relies on wait-list control comparisons. Previous studies have found that meditation training over several months is associated with improvements in cognitive control and attention. We used a visual...
PLoS One
August 28, 2013
Fabio Ferrarelli, Richard Smith, Daniela Dentico et al.
125 citations
Over the past several years meditation practice has gained increasing attention as a non-pharmacological intervention to provide health related benefits, from promoting general wellness to alleviating the symptoms of a variety of medical conditions. However, the effects of meditation training on brain activity still need to be fully characterized. Sleep provides a unique approach to explore the...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
2013
Micah Allen, Jonathan Smallwood, Joanna Christensen et al.
100 citations
Self-generated thoughts unrelated to ongoing activities, also known as "mind-wandering," make up a substantial portion of our daily lives. Reports of such task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) predict both poor performance on demanding cognitive tasks and blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) activity in the default mode network (DMN). However, recent findings suggest that TUTs and the DMN can also...
Neuroimage
2013
Antoine Lutz, Daniel R McFarlin, David M Perlman et al.
Experientially opening oneself to pain rather than avoiding it is said to reduce the mind's tendency toward avoidance or anxiety which can further exacerbate the experience of pain. This is a central feature of mindfulness-based therapies. Little is known about the neural mechanisms of mindfulness on pain. During a meditation practice similar to mindfulness, functional magnetic resonance...
Journal of Neuroscience
October 31, 2012
Micah Allen, Martin Dietz, Karina S. Blair et al.
389 citations
Mindfulness meditation is a set of attention-based, regulatory, and self-inquiry training regimes. Although the impact of mindfulness training (MT) on self-regulation is well established, the neural mechanisms supporting such plasticity are poorly understood. MT is thought to act through interoceptive salience and attentional control mechanisms, but until now conflicting evidence from...
PLoS One
May 15, 2012
A Chiesa, A Chiesa, A Chiesa et al.
217 citations
Two experiments examined the relation between mindfulness practice and cognitive rigidity by using a variation of the Einstellung water jar task. Participants were required to use three hypothetical jars to obtain a specific amount of water. Initial problems were solvable by the same complex formula, but in later problems (“critical” or “trap” problems) solving was possible by an additional...