Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
June 19, 2023
Junling Gao, R. Sun, Hang Kin Leung et al.
After 8 weeks of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training, the correlation between alpha brain wave frequency and heart coherence increased significantly in the middle frontal and bilateral temporal regions. Alpha coherence and heart coherence showed similar changes, but alpha peak power did not. Standard spectrum analysis alone showed no difference before and after training. Individual alpha peak frequency is relatively stable, and its interplay with cardiac activity may be a more sensitive measure of brain-heart connection than power spectrum. This preliminary study involved eleven participants aged 28–52 years.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
May 5, 2023
Elizabeth Krasnoff, Gaétan Chevalier
Inaudible binaural beats (BB) objectively induce a relaxed state, as measured by brain wave activity. EEG readings showed increases in positive outlook and a relaxing brain across several scores, including F3/F4 Alpha Assessment and CZ Theta Beta, along with scalp topography maps. Most subjects also showed improvement in microcirculation or cardiovascular scores, though Menlascan and Big Five character assessment results were less conclusive. Since the beats were inaudible, the effects could not be attributed to the placebo effect. These results warrant further research with more subjects and different frequencies of BB and music tracks.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 24, 2023
Eric Bond
A new hypothesis proposes that consciousness arises from 'coherence fields'—synchronously resonating structures of light and atoms at the nanoscale, forming the fundamental unit of first-person percepts like colors, sounds, and thoughts. The theory builds on quantum biology and neuroscience, suggesting that electrical impulses in neurons are driven by quantum-scale coherence, and that local field potential oscillations in the brain's electric field may be modulated by these fields. Temperature variation in neural tissue is posited as a signature of coherence field modulation, not merely waste heat, with infrared photonic waves acting as an interstitial medium. The author outlines possible routes to modulate coherence fields via electric currents, electromagnetic fields, radiation, and entanglement, and suggests that if validated, this could resolve the mind/body problem.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2023
Andrés Gómez-Emilsson, Chris Percy
The boundary problem asks why conscious experiences have hard boundaries around a unified first-person perspective, operating at a particular spatiotemporal scale. This problem has received little attention since it was first detailed in 1998, despite being closely related to the better-known binding problem. Any theory of consciousness addressing the binding problem must also address the boundary problem. The authors review recent discussion, identify five specific boundary problems for precision, and examine electromagnetic field theories, which have had success with the binding problem. They introduce topological segmentation as a feature that could create hard boundaries around holistic, frame-invariant units capable of downward causality, and outline a programme for testing this concept to differentiate between competing electromagnetic theories of consciousness.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
September 1, 2022
G. Wong, R. Sun, J. Adler et al.
A single Buddhist monk performed one 10-minute Loving-Kindness Meditation session between two 10-minute resting periods. Electroencephalography (EEG) showed a significant increase in theta power at both frontal and parietal sites, and heart rate decreased significantly between pre- and post-resting tasks. Theta power was negatively correlated with heart rate and positively correlated with a self-designed report score. These neurophysiological changes suggest that Loving-Kindness Meditation is accompanied by slower brain frequencies and reduced heart rate, with subjective psychological assessments linked to objective measurements in this long-term meditator.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
May 11, 2022
Irem Duman, Isabell Sophia Ehmann, Alicia Ronnie Gonsalves et al.
In consciousness research, participants are typically asked to report what they consciously experience, but this may conflate the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) with attention or metacognition. To avoid this, researchers have adopted no-report paradigms, which rely on comparing conditions with and without report. However, analysis of several such comparisons reveals alternative interpretations and methodological issues beyond the earlier criticism that merely removing report does not prevent metacognitive reflection. Without a task, the conscious mind tends to turn inward, switching between external stimuli and daydreaming or mind-wandering. Thus, no-report paradigms may instead capture the neural correlates of conscious disengagement, reaffirming that they are no less problematic than report paradigms.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2022
M Bruce MacIver
Electromagnetic field (EMF) theories of mind-brain integration have been proposed for over seventy years and continue to attract interest because they explain unified conscious experience and address the binding problem. EMFs are easily measured, and many correlates have been noted for field activity associated with loss and recovery of consciousness, sensory perceptions, and behavior. Early experiments were thought to have ruled out a role of EMFs in brain activity, leading neuroscience to marginalize these theories. This paper explains why that early evidence was misinterpreted and offers an alternative view to help direct future research.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
September 13, 2021
Dongdong Jiang, Zongyu Liu, Guoxiao Sun
A randomized trial found that a session of yoga meditation temporarily increased brain activation in the prefrontal cortex and improved accuracy on a Flanker task measuring inhibitory control in young adults. Fifty participants (aged 21–28) were assigned to either a yoga meditation group or a control group. After the intervention, the yoga meditation group showed higher accuracy on the Flanker task and greater oxyhemoglobin levels in the prefrontal cortex, as measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy. The authors conclude that yoga meditation is an effective exercise for improving inhibitory control in young adults.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
August 18, 2021
Ruxandra I. Tivadar, R. Knight, Athina Tzovara
The brain automatically integrates sensory information to form predictions about future events, a process studied through predictive coding. While initially developed for vision, most research has focused on auditory processing, using the mismatch negativity signal as a key measure of prediction error. Auditory prediction errors occur across various states of consciousness, and their presence and characteristics are linked to residual levels of consciousness and the return of awareness. This review covers the neural substrates of auditory predictive processes and their relation to consciousness, then examines how these processes are modulated in states like wakefulness, sleep, anesthesia, coma, meditation, and hypnosis. Future research combining electrophysiological and computational techniques may clarify which predictive processes remain when consciousness fades.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
June 22, 2021
Michaela Rohr, Dirk Wentura
Whether emotional information can be processed without conscious awareness has been debated since psychology began. Many studies have used the masked sequential priming paradigm, where a briefly presented prime is followed by a mask to prevent conscious perception, and participants categorize target stimuli by valence. Faster responses when prime and target share the same valence suggest non-conscious processing. This review examines three questions: the methods used to establish non-conscious processing, evidence for non-conscious extraction of evaluative information, and evidence for non-conscious processing beyond simple positive/negative discrimination, such as emotion-specific features. The review highlights current debates and future directions for the field.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2021
Madhukar Dwivedi, Neha Dubey, Aditya Jain Pansari et al.
Long-term meditation practice in people with mild cognitive impairment or mild Alzheimer's disease dementia leads to beneficial changes in cortical thickness and gray matter volume. After six months, meditators showed greater increases in several brain regions involved in executive control and memory compared to non-meditators, including left caudal middle frontal, left rostral middle frontal, left superior parietal, right lateral orbitofrontal, and right superior frontal cortices. Some areas, such as left lateral occipital and right posterior cingulate cortices, showed lower cortical thickness changes in meditators. In the hippocampus, meditators had greater gray matter volume increases in left CA1, molecular layer HP, and CA3 subfields, and the right thalamus also increased in volume. These brain regions are prominently at risk in neurodegenerative diseases.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2021
Linda A W Brakel
The mind/body problem has complicated interdisciplinary research between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. This article presents problems for both dualist and physicalist positions, introduces concepts such as independent mental causation, emergence, and multiple realization, and advances an original account called Diachronic Conjunctive Token Physicalism (DiCoToP). The account is claimed to reveal new puzzles, solve certain psychoanalytic problems, and is supported by some empirical evidence consistent with its view. The piece concludes by challenging neuroscience research to gather evidence for or against DiCoToP.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2021
Malik Galijašević, Ruth Steiger, Milovan Regodić et al.
After seven weeks of focused attention meditation training, brain energy metabolism shifts in specific ways. Compared with a focused attention counting task, the meditation state showed decreased phosphocreatine/ATP and phosphocreatine/inorganic phosphate ratios, along with lower intracellular pH, especially in the basal ganglia, frontal lobes, and occipital lobes. Meanwhile, the Pi/ATP ratio, cerebral magnesium, and absolute inorganic phosphate values increased in those same areas. The changes in temporal areas and basal ganglia suggest a higher energetic state from meditation, while frontal and occipital changes may indicate reduced ATP turnover, energy state, and oxidative capacity.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2021
Jacob Young, Martha E Arterberry, Joshua P Martin
Meditation encompasses various mental training practices that improve attention and emotion regulation. The electrical brain activity of highly skilled meditators engaging in one of six meditation styles (shamatha, vipassana, zazen, dzogchen, tonglen, and visualization) was recorded, with a mind-wandering task as a control. Lempel-Ziv complexity revealed differences in nonlinear brain dynamics (entropy) during meditation compared to mind wandering, suggesting that meditation, regardless of practice, affects neural complexity. However, no differences were found in power spectra across six frequency bands, likely because participants engaged in different practices. Exploratory analyses indicated neurological differences among meditation practices.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 22, 2020
Takuma Miyoshi, Kensuke Tanioka, Shoko Yamamoto et al.
A clustering method called Tucker3 simultaneously selects brain regions and feature metrics that distinguish resting from meditative states. Breath-counting meditation, a focused-attention practice, was studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging in novice meditators. Clustering coefficients increased in eight brain regions—including parts of the frontal, occipital, and cingulate cortex, the cerebellum, and the parahippocampal gyrus—during meditation compared to rest. The work offers a data-driven framework for analyzing functional brain states and demonstrates its utility in studying the neural basis of focused-attention meditation.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2020
correction
This is a correction notice for a previously published article. It does not contain any new findings, arguments, or data.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2020
Helen Y. Weng, Jarrod A Lewis-Peacock, Frederick M Hecht et al.
Multi-voxel pattern analysis of fMRI data can recognize five internal attentional states—breath attention, mind wandering, self-referential processing, attention to feet, and attention to sounds—in individual participants with accuracy well above chance (over 41% vs. 20% chance). In a mixed sample of 16 experienced meditators and novices, classifiers trained on a directed attention task successfully identified these states in 87.5% of participants. When applied to a separate 10-minute meditation session, the classifiers indicated that participants spent more time attending to breath than mind wandering or self-referential processing. The findings suggest that objective, participant-level measurement of mental states during meditation is feasible, potentially improving assessment of internally-oriented attention cultivated by meditation.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
October 18, 2019
Qin Xiao, Xing‐Rong Zhao, Guoli Bi et al.
After 8 weeks of weekly Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training, healthy adults with no prior meditation experience showed increased regional homogeneity in the right superior parietal lobule and left postcentral gyrus, along with altered functional connectivity in postcentral gyrus-related networks, as measured by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Mindfulness questionnaire scores improved and negative affect significantly decreased. The results suggest a tendency toward stronger involvement of the parietal cortex in mindfulness beginners, indicating that short-term mindfulness meditation may optimize emotional processing.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
September 4, 2019
E. Nyhus, W. Engel, Tomas Donatelli Pitfield et al.
Four weeks of mindfulness meditation training improved the ability to remember the context in which information was learned (source memory) and increased theta brainwave activity in frontal and parietal regions. Participants who practiced mindfulness meditation showed greater improvements on a memory task and reported higher mindfulness scores after training compared to a waitlist group. Theta oscillations, which are linked to memory retrieval, increased in right frontal and left parietal channels, and changes in mindfulness scores correlated with changes in theta activity in right frontal channels. The findings suggest mindfulness meditation enhances episodic memory retrieval and associated neural oscillations.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
June 27, 2019
Qin Zhang, Zheng Wang, Xinqiang Wang et al.
An 8-week mindfulness training program combining 4 weeks of focusing attention (FA) meditation and 4 weeks of open monitoring (OM) meditation reduced anxiety, depression, and rumination scores, increased mindfulness scores, and shortened reaction times on the incongruent condition of the Stroop task compared with a control group. FA meditation partially improved mindfulness and effectively improved mood, while OM meditation further improved mindfulness and helped maintain a positive mood. The program was designed for ordinary individuals and included 40 participants randomly assigned to training or control groups, with assessments at three time points.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
April 12, 2019
Tracie D. Parkinson, J. Kornelsen, Stephen D. Smith
Trait mindfulness, the tendency to maintain open and compassionate attention to the present moment, is linked to specific patterns of brain connectivity. In 28 undergraduates, higher mindfulness scores correlated with increased functional connectivity in neural networks involved in attention, interoception, and executive control, and decreased connectivity in regions tied to self-referential thought and mind wandering. These patterns align with mindfulness benefits such as improved attention and self-regulation.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
March 26, 2019
Seoyeon Kwak, Tae Young Lee, W. Jung et al.
A 4-day meditation intervention produced immediate increases in mindfulness and resilience that were sustained at a 3-month follow-up, while a relaxation retreat showed only short-term gains. Meditation specifically strengthened resting-state functional connectivity between the left rostral anterior cingulate cortex and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, precuneus, and angular gyrus. Changes in connectivity between the rACC and dmPFC mediated the relationship between improvements in mindfulness and resilience and correlated with resilience changes both immediately and at 3 months. These neural changes may help protect against psychiatric disorders by improving stress-related brain mechanisms.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2019
Tam Hunt, Jonathan W. Schooler
Resonance—synchronization, harmonization, or vibrations in a general sense—appears to be integrally related to consciousness. In mammalian brains, a specific combination of gamma, beta, and theta electrical synchrony is a possible neural correlate of consciousness. Similar resonance patterns occur in many living and non-living structures. This paper reviews resonating structures across neuroscience, biology, and physics and proposes a solution to the 'combination problem' of consciousness: how micro-conscious entities combine into macro-consciousness.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2019
Paul Dennison
The paper argues that typical studies of the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) are limited because they examine one part of the cortical network using another, focusing on what is termed 'default consciousness' (DCs)—everyday waking awareness. In contrast, Buddhist jhāna meditation intentionally withdraws from DCs to an inward-directed, still state called jhāna consciousness. This preliminary EEG study of jhāna meditation reports findings unlike those in other meditation research: highly alert subjects displayed spindle activity similar to sleep spindles, more experienced subjects showed high-voltage slow-waves reminiscent of deep sleep or coma, and some exhibited spike-wave bursts similar to absence epilepsy. Some subjects could consciously evoke clonic seizure-like activity. The authors suggest these observations reflect a profound disruption of DCs when personal elements are withdrawn.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
November 13, 2018
Andressa A Magalhaes, L. Oliveira, M. Pereira et al.
Meditation practice appears to engage cognitive and attentional control resources in the brain when people face negative emotional stimuli, even without being asked to regulate their emotions. A systematic review of 11 eligible studies found that both novice and long-term meditators showed greater prefrontal and frontal brain activity during exposure to negative stimuli, suggesting increased recruitment of control mechanisms. Findings from emotion-related brain areas were limited, but some studies indicated greater insular activity in meditators, potentially reflecting heightened bodily awareness. These results support the idea that meditation fosters interoceptive awareness of bodily and emotional states.