Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
August 6, 2018
Catherine J. Norris, Daniel Creem, R. Hendler et al.
A brief, 10-minute mindfulness meditation session improved attentional performance in novice meditators compared to a control activity. In two studies, participants who listened to a meditation tape showed better accuracy on incongruent trials of a Flanker task without slowing down, and faster responses on the Attention Network Test without loss of accuracy. These benefits were moderated by neuroticism: individuals lower in neuroticism who meditated exhibited a larger N2 event-related potential to incongruent trials, indicating more efficient resource allocation, while those higher in neuroticism did not show this effect. The findings suggest even short meditation can enhance attentional resource allocation in some novices.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
June 11, 2018
E. Kozasa, J. Balardin, J. Sato et al.
A 7-day Zen meditation retreat had distinct effects on brain activity in meditators and non-meditators during the Stroop Word-Color Task, even though both groups showed no differences in task accuracy or response time. Before the retreat, experienced meditators displayed reduced brain activation in attention-related regions (anterior cingulate, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, caudate, putamen, insula, posterior cingulate) compared to non-meditators. After the retreat, non-meditators showed reduced activation in these same regions, becoming similar to the meditators before the retreat, suggesting increased neural efficiency from just 7 days of intensive training. In contrast, meditators showed increased activation after the same training, possibly reflecting differences in expertise and neuroplasticity.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
February 16, 2018
Hyoungkyu Kim, A. Hudetz, Joseph W Y Lee et al.
A practical method estimates integrated information (Φ), a measure proposed by integrated information theory to be related to consciousness, from 128-channel EEG. The method alone cannot distinguish certain anesthetic states, but combining Φ with four EEG connectivity parameters—power, frequency, functional connectivity, and modularity—differentiates all states of consciousness. The association of Φ with EEG connectivity during anesthesia offers a new approach to applying the theory, potentially useful for characterizing consciousness in sleep, anesthesia, and coma.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2018
Antonio Alcaro, Stefano Carta
Subjective identity is rooted in ancient subcortical processes that generate intense, unthinking emotional experiences. These core-Self emotional drives, normally discharged through instinctual actions, can instead be reflected internally via connections between subcortical and cortical midline brain structures, including the Default Mode Network. This intrinsic self-referential activity, originating from REM sleep arousal, organizes emotions into dynamic mental structures like Jung's feeling-toned complexes or Klein's unconscious phantasies. It sustains an introverted SEEKING activity that explores internally constructed virtual scenarios—the basis of imagination, dreaming, and mind wandering. During development, this imaginative function is attuned in relational space and expressed through nonverbal and verbal patterns. Psychotherapy may benefit from helping patients move beyond perceived feeling-objects into an empty feeling-state, reactivating deep imaginal self-referential restructuring.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2018
Francesca Pistoia, Giulia Mattiacci, Marco Sarà et al.
A reliable Italian version of the Near-Death Experience Scale has been developed and tested. The scale was translated through multiple stages and then administered to 20 patients who had been in a coma and later regained full consciousness. Inter-rater reliability was good, and test-retest reliability was excellent. This tool can now be used to study how often near-death experiences occur, why they vary across different life-threatening conditions, and what brain mechanisms might underlie them.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2018
Gonzalo Boncompte, Diego Cosmelli
The neural signature of conscious perception is debated, with candidates including the P3b, Visual Awareness Negativity (VAN), and early components like P1. Most studies use static images, favoring ventral stream processing. This experiment isolated local motion, a dorsally processed feature, as the consciously perceived content. Using physical equality between Seen and Unseen conditions and minimal contrast differences, a P3b with wide centro-parietal distribution strongly correlated with stimulus detection, with larger magnitude for Seen vs. Unseen conditions consistently at the single subject level. VAN was undetectable, and P1 was absent. A N2pc component appeared in the 200-300 ms window, consistent with high attentional demands. Results extend P3b's role as a content-independent neural correlate of consciousness to visual motion perception.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
June 26, 2017
B. R. Cahn, Matthew S. Goodman, C. Peterson et al.
A 3-month yoga and meditation retreat was associated with decreased anxiety and depression, increased mindfulness, and changes in biomarkers. Plasma BDNF increased, and the cortisol awakening response grew larger. The anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 rose while the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-12 fell, but contrary to expectations, several other pro-inflammatory cytokines (IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8) also increased. Participants with higher anxiety showed smaller BDNF increases. The authors suggest these biomarker changes reflect mind-body integration and well-being, though physical exercise and diet may also contribute.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
June 16, 2017
A. Ioannides, Lichan Liu, V. Poghosyan et al.
During the transition to sleep, the brain actively inhibits frontal lobe activity, increasing delta and theta waves, while suppressing activation in the posterior parietal cortex, causing a sharp drop in alpha and higher frequencies. These changes may causally link to loss of consciousness. In light sleep, these patterns become more widespread, but alpha and low sigma power reemerge in frontal midline areas, suggesting some monitoring of internal and external environment resumes. Just before spindles and K-complexes, focal spectral changes occur in prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate areas. Spindles involve further frontal inhibition and power increases in posterior parietal cortex, supporting memory consolidation. K-complexes correlate with alpha increases in monitoring areas, suggesting a sentinel role to evaluate provoking events and decide whether to wake or inhibit processing.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
March 16, 2017
G. Riva, S. Serino, D. di Lernia et al.
Medical progress has improved physicians' ability to interact with patients' physical bodies, but medicine still views the body mechanistically. The interaction between cognitive neuroscience of bodily self-consciousness, rooted in multisensory integration, with virtual reality, haptic technologies, and robotics is giving new meaning to "Mens sana in corpore sano." This provides the basis for "Embodied Medicine": using advanced technologies to alter body experience to improve health. The authors argue that existing bodily illusions need improvement by incorporating free-energy and predictive coding approaches and integrating internal inputs (interoceptive, proprioceptive, vestibular). They propose "Sonoception" as an extension using sound and vibrations to modify internal body experience.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2017
Charlotte Martial, Héléna Cassol, Georgios Antonopoulos et al.
correction
This is a correction notice for a previously published article. It specifies that an error on page 311 in volume 11, identified by PMID 28659779, has been corrected. The notice provides no new findings, arguments, or data.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2017
Yusuf O Cakmak, Gazanfer Ekinci, Armin Heinecke et al.
Sufi Whirling Dervishes can spin continuously for an hour without experiencing vertigo, while a few minutes of spinning typically induces vertigo in healthy people. This unique long-term vestibular stimulation offers a model for understanding cortical networks that resist vertigo. Magnetic resonance imaging of 10 dervishes and 10 controls showed significantly thinner cortical areas in the dervishes, particularly in hubs of the default mode network and in motion perception and discrimination areas, including the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, right lingual gyrus, left visual area 5/middle temporal, and left fusiform gyrus. The findings suggest a relationship between motion/body perception cortical networks and the ability to whirl for prolonged periods without dizziness.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2017
Raphael Vallat, Tarek Lajnef, Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub et al.
People who frequently recall their dreams show larger brain responses to sounds while awake and asleep and spend more time awake during the night, but their overall sleep structure is similar to that of low dream recallers. In a study of 18 high and 18 low dream recallers, sounds were played during a full night of sleep while brain activity was recorded. No differences in sleep microstructure—such as arousals, eye movements, or muscle twitches—were found between the groups. High recallers had more stimuli that caused awakenings and longer awakenings, but not more frequent or longer arousals.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
December 22, 2016
I-Wen Su, Fang-Wei Wu, Keng-Chen Liang et al.
People with chronic pain reported less pain after a six-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course, and their brain scans showed increased connectivity between the anterior insular cortex and the dorsal anterior midcingulate cortex. This brain connectivity change correlated with reduced pain scores. The findings suggest mindfulness training can alter brain network dynamics related to pain experience.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
December 22, 2016
Yanli Lin, Megan Fisher, Sean Roberts et al.
Brief mindfulness meditation reduces emotional reactivity as measured by the late positive potential (LPP), an electrical brain response linked to emotional processing. In a study of participants, those who engaged in a guided meditation practice showed a smaller difference in LPP response between negative high-arousing and neutral stimuli over time, indicating reduced emotional reactivity. In contrast, simply instructing participants to attend mindfully to stimuli did not change the LPP. Dispositional mindfulness was also linked to reduced LPP responses to negative stimuli, but only among participants who listened to a control audio recording, not those who meditated. These findings suggest that practicing mindfulness meditation, rather than just adopting a mindful state, can cultivate emotional regulation similar to naturally high dispositional mindfulness.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
July 4, 2016
Michael David Mrazek, Benjamin W Mooneyham, Kaita Lepore Mrazek et al.
A multifaceted 12-week intervention combining physical exercise, cognitive training, and mindfulness practice produced substantial and enduring improvements across multiple cognitive, affective, and neuroimaging measures in healthy young adults. Participants showed gains in physical health, working memory, standardized test performance, mood, self-esteem, self-efficacy, mindfulness, and life satisfaction. Improvements in mindfulness correlated with increased degree centrality of the insula, greater insula-somatosensory cortex connectivity, and reduced posterior cingulate-somatosensory cortex connectivity. Working memory and reading comprehension gains were linked to increased degree centrality in a middle temporal gyrus region integrated with the executive control network. The findings suggest higher limits for rapid concurrent plasticity than widely assumed.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2016
Tobias Esch, Jeremy Winkler, Volker Auwärter et al.
A 5-day meditation training focusing on body and breath awareness did not increase pain tolerance more than no intervention in healthy adults. Pain tolerance actually increased in both the meditation and control groups, with a larger increase in the control group. Naloxone infusion showed a trend toward decreasing pain tolerance in both groups. The meditation group made fewer errors on an attention test. Blood samples detected morphine and morphine metabolites sporadically with no clear pattern. The intended link between meditation, attention, mindfulness, and pain tolerance was not supported under conditions designed to avoid placebo effects.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2016
Claudio Babiloni, Nicola Marzano, Andrea Soricelli et al.
Primary visual consciousness—whether a person reports seeing a stimulus—is associated with enhanced cortical neural synchronization, but the timing and brain regions involved depend on the type of visual feature. In three experiments using event-related potentials, seen and unseen trials showed no difference in the timing of neural responses, but the sources of brain activity differed. For visuospatial stimuli, consciousness involved higher activity in dorsal occipital and parietal areas around 400 milliseconds. For emotional face expressions, greater activity appeared in parietal and frontal areas at about 180 milliseconds. For written words, higher activity occurred in occipital, parietal, and temporal areas at about 230 milliseconds. These results suggest that primary visual consciousness arises from synchronizing different cortical networks depending on the visual feature, possibly forming a multidimensional palette of qualia.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2016
Rajanikant Panda, Rose D Bharath, Neeraj Upadhyay et al.
Meditation alters both the spatial extent and the temporal dynamics of the default mode network (DMN). Using simultaneous EEG and fMRI, experienced meditators showed reduced activity in the posterior cingulate hub of the DMN and increased activity in right frontal and left temporal areas compared to healthy controls, both during rest and during meditation. EEG analysis revealed that the DMN-related microstate occurred more frequently and lasted longer in meditators, and these parameters increased further during meditation. The change in microstate duration when entering meditation correlated negatively with years of experience, indicating that long-term practice produces durable changes in DMN dynamics.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
September 11, 2015
Dav eClark, Frank eSchumann, Stewart H. Mostofsky
A review of empirical and theoretical literature proposes that motor control and cognitive control are tightly linked, with skillful movement covarying with skillful attention and self-regulation. In ADHD, deficient motor control correlates with impaired behavioral inhibition, contributing to distractibility and impulsivity. Mindful movement practices such as yoga and tai chi may improve the functional quality of rehearsed motor procedures, cultivating a transferrable skill of attention. The authors endorse a model where motor plans, attention, and executive goals are mutually co-defining aspects of skilled behavior linked by reciprocal inhibitory and excitatory connections. Mindful movement training may benefit individuals with ADHD and other populations.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2015
Peter Payne, Mardi A Crane-Godreau
The preparatory set (PS) is proposed as a concept describing how organisms coordinate muscle tone, posture, breathing, autonomic functions, emotional state, attention, and expectations in response to environmental challenges, forming a foundation for approach/avoid behaviors. The authors argue that the PS offers a more nuanced and flexible perspective on stress response than current theories. They hypothesize that body-mind therapeutic and educational systems (BTES)—including meditative movement, meditation, somatic education, and body-oriented psychotherapies—work by intervening on the PS to remedy stress and trauma. The PS can be adaptive or maladaptive, and BTES interventions may restore adaptive PS. Supportive evidence is discussed, and future research directions are suggested.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2015
Tim Gard, Maxime Taquet, Rohan Dixit et al.
Yoga and meditation practitioners show stronger functional connectivity within basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits than non-practitioners, with the right caudate emerging as a central node. Analyses using Network-Based Statistics revealed difference components for yoga practitioners versus controls and meditators versus controls, with significantly greater degree centrality in the caudate for both practitioner groups. This greater connectivity was not due to single connections but to broader connectivity between the caudate and numerous brain regions. The finding of greater caudate connectivity in meditators was replicated in an independent dataset. This enhanced connectivity may relate to reported effects of these practices on behavioral flexibility, mental health, and well-being, though its mechanistic role remains unestablished.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
September 22, 2014
Francesca eFiori, Nicole eDavid, Salvatore Maria Aglioti
Yoga practitioners are more accurate than non-experts at judging verticality when a misleading visual frame is present, a skill known as field-independence. They also score higher on self-transcendence, a personality trait related to spiritual experiences. Among yoga practitioners, those with higher self-transcendence are even less influenced by the visual context, suggesting that this trait helps them rely more on internal body signals (vestibular and proprioceptive) rather than external visual cues. The findings indicate that body expertise and personality together shape how the brain weights sensory information.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
September 22, 2014
John eThomas, Graham eJamieson, Marc eCohen
Meditation experience shapes brain function in distinct ways depending on the practitioner's skill level. Intermediate meditators with about 4 years of practice showed greater low-frequency brain activity (theta and alpha bands) during both meditation and non-meditation tasks, especially in the right frontal and parietal regions. Advanced meditators with about 30 years of experience showed greater high-frequency activity (beta and gamma bands) across all conditions, which expanded further during meditation. The right insula, inferior frontal gyrus, and anterior temporal lobe were key regions for advanced practitioners. Distinct neural networks in alpha and gamma bands were identified, with meditation practice expanding these networks to include left-hemisphere areas. These brain changes parallel traditional descriptions of developmental stages in Yoga proficiency.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
May 22, 2014
B. Alexander eDiaz, Sophie eVan der Sluis, Sarah eMoens et al.
A 50-item self-report survey, the Amsterdam Resting-State Questionnaire (ARSQ), was developed to measure cognition during rest. Based on data from 813 participants after five minutes of eyes-closed rest at home, factor analysis identified seven dimensions of resting-state cognition: Discontinuity of Mind, Theory of Mind, Self, Planning, Sleepiness, Comfort, and Somatic Awareness. The structure of cognition was similar during resting-state fMRI and EEG, with high test-retest correlations. Mental health correlated positively with Comfort and negatively with Discontinuity of Mind. Sleepiness may partially explain a resting-state EEG profile previously linked to Alzheimer's disease. The ARSQ provides information about cognitive phenotypes for research on neural correlates of resting-state cognition.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
May 22, 2014
Marieke Karlijn van Vugt, Peter eHitchcock, Ben eShahar et al.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) helps protect against depression-related deterioration in memory retrieval patterns. In a randomized controlled trial, 29 people with recurrent depression who completed MBCT maintained stable initial affective bias (probability of first recalling a positive or negative word) after a stressor, while 23 wait-list controls showed increased negative bias and decreased positive bias. MBCT also reduced participants' tendency to sustain trains of negative words during free recall, indicating less persistence of negative mind states. These model-based measures of recall dynamics provide detailed insight into how mindfulness may reduce rumination beyond what self-report questionnaires capture.