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...
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...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Antoine Lutz
Exploring the initial findings of neuroscientific research on meditation, new horizons of further inquiry in consciousness research are apparent. While such studies of contemplative practices are still in their infancy, early findings promise to contribute in three key areas. These include: Neuroplasticity – physiological and psychological indices of short and long terms responses of the brain...
Emotion
2010
David M Perlman, Tim V Salomons, Richard J. Davidson et al.
203 citations
Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience that can be regulated by many different cognitive mechanisms. We compared the regulatory qualities of two different meditation practices during noxious thermal stimuli: Focused Attention, directed at a fixation cross away from the stimulation, which could regulate negative affect through a sensory gating mechanism; and Open Monitoring,...
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...
Neuroimage
September 1, 2009
Antoine Lutz, Lawrence L. Greischar, David M Perlman et al.
The brain and the cardiovascular system influence each other during the processing of emotion. The study of the interactions of these systems during emotion regulation has been limited in human functional neuroimaging, despite its potential importance for physical health. We have previously reported that mental expertise in cultivation of compassion alters the activation of circuits linked with...
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...
Psychophysiology
May 22, 2008
Sahib S. Khalsa, David Rudrauf, Antonio Damasio et al.
276 citations
Attention to internal body sensations is practiced in most meditation traditions. Many traditions state that this practice results in increased awareness of internal body sensations, but scientific studies evaluating this claim are lacking. We predicted that experienced meditators would display performance superior to that of nonmeditators on heartbeat detection, a standard noninvasive measure...
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 One
March 25, 2008
Antoine Lutz, Julie A. Brefczynski-Lewis, Tom Johnstone et al.
942 citations
Recent brain imaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have implicated insula and anterior cingulate cortices in the empathic response to another's pain. However, virtually nothing is known about the impact of the voluntary generation of compassion on this network. To investigate these questions we assessed brain activity using fMRI while novice and expert meditation...
IEEE Signal Processing Magazine
2008
Richard J. Davidson, Antoine Lutz
282 citations
The term neuroplasticity is used to describe the brain changes that occur in response to experience. This article examines the changes in the brain that occur during different styles of meditation practice.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
June 28, 2007
Julie A. Brefczynski-Lewis, Antoine Lutz, Hillary S. Schaefer et al.
988 citations
Meditation refers to a family of mental training practices that are designed to familiarize the practitioner with specific types of mental processes. One of the most basic forms of meditation is concentration meditation, in which sustained attention is focused on an object such as a small visual stimulus or the breath. In age-matched participants, using functional MRI, we found that activation...
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...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
November 8, 2004
Antoine Lutz, Lawrence L. Greischar, Nancy B. Rawlings et al.
1,325 citations
Practitioners understand "meditation," or mental training, to be a process of familiarization with one's own mental life leading to long-lasting changes in cognition and emotion. Little is known about this process and its impact on the brain. Here we find that long-term Buddhist practitioners self-induce sustained electroencephalographic high-amplitude gamma-band oscillations and...
Biological research
2003
David Rudrauf, Antoine Lutz, Diego Cosmelli et al.
194 citations
This paper reviews in detail Francisco Varela's work on subjectivity and consciousness in the biological sciences. His original approach to this "hard problem" presents a subjectivity that is radically intertwined with its biological and physical roots. It must be understood within the framework of his theory of a concrete, embodied dynamics, grounded in his general theory of autonomous...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
January 22, 2002
Antoine Lutz, Jean-Philippe Lachaux, Jacques Martinerie et al.
500 citations
Even during well-calibrated cognitive tasks, successive brain responses to repeated identical stimulations are highly variable. The source of this variability is believed to reside mainly in fluctuations of the subject's cognitive "context" defined by his/her attentive state, spontaneous thought process, strategy to carry out the task, and so on... As these factors are hard to manipulate...
Donal G. Maccoon, Katherine A Maclean, Richard J. Davidson et al.
9 citations
Background: 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...
Oussama Abdoun, Arnaud Poublan-Couzardot, Stéphane Offort et al.
preprint
BACKGROUND: A significant share of meditation research relies on trait psychometric measures of mindfulness, which neglect the complex and dynamic unfolding of experiential processes entailed by meditation over time. However, there have been a few attempts to capture ongoing changes in experience during meditation. In this study, we integrated and expanded on 3 of these previous approaches to...