Current Opinion in Psychology
October 25, 2018
Claire Petitmengin, Martijn van Beek, Michel Bitbol et al.
163 citations
Meditation research mostly examines neurophysiology, but the actual moment-to-moment experience of meditating—what it feels like at different stages and in different practices—remains largely unstudied. This article reports a pilot project that used 'micro-phenomenological' interview methods to help meditators describe their lived experience with rigor and precision. The results show that such detailed descriptions can deepen understanding of meditation, improve practice, and inform teaching, revealing a valuable but overlooked dimension of contemplative science.
Current Opinion in Psychology
January 14, 2019
E. Garland, B. Fredrickson
131 citations
The Mindfulness-to-Meaning Theory (MMT) describes how mindfulness promotes health and resilience through positive emotion regulation. This review extends the MMT to show that mindfulness fosters self-transcendence by triggering upward spirals of decentering, attentional broadening, reappraisal, and savoring. Savoring is key for inducing absorptive experiences of oneness between subject and object, amplifying the object's salience and imbuing perception with affective meaning. New evidence indicates that inducing self-transcendent positive emotions and nondual states through mindfulness-based interventions may restructure reward processing, producing therapeutic effects on addictive behavior, such as opioid misuse, and chronic pain syndromes.
Current Opinion in Psychology
August 1, 2019
Poppy la Schoenberg, David R. Vago
59 citations
The exploration of human consciousness, specifically how brain structure and function produce the mind, remains a frontier in neuroscience. Mindfulness and contemplative practices involve systematic mental training that can develop the mind in quantifiable ways. While some electrophysiological markers of meditation have been identified, fundamental questions remain: how to classify discrete 'mind states' of consciousness in line with phenomenological experience for ontological quantification; what measures best represent such classification; and whether current electrophysiological approaches can map developmentally specified mind states to neurobiological substrates, given ongoing debates about EEG band functionality and underlying mechanisms.
Current Opinion in Psychology
August 1, 2019
Wendy Hasenkamp
15 citations
Modern mindfulness research draws on both science and Buddhist philosophy, but the Buddhist origins of meditation practices are frequently overlooked. This paper argues that Buddhist concepts remain valuable for studying the mind in contemplative science, discussing their role in the field's development and their current influence on neurophenomenology, subjective experience, attention, self, and prosocial qualities.
Current Opinion in Psychology
April 1, 2025
Matthias Forstmann, Christina Sagioglou
11 citations
Psychedelics may increase feelings of connectedness to both nature and other people. This review synthesizes evidence that these substances facilitate self-expansion through ego dissolution, which temporarily alters self-boundaries, and enhanced emotional processing, which increases empathic concern. The authors propose a multidimensional model of connectedness distinguishing perceptual, emotional, and epistemic domains, each showing distinct patterns in acute and enduring effects. Interpretation is complicated by methodological challenges including functional unblinding, reliance on self-reports, and small sample sizes. Future research would benefit from behavioral measures, active placebos, and careful consideration of contextual factors.
Current Opinion in Psychology
August 6, 2025
Iva Totomanova, Eline Haijen, Petra P M Hurks et al.
5 citations
Regular use of low doses of LSD or psilocybin, known as microdosing, has been studied in 57 human studies. Reported benefits include improved mood, enhanced cognition, social functioning, and mental health, but findings are inconsistent and largely based on self-reports. Adverse effects such as anxiety, physical discomfort, and cognitive disruption are also common. Outcomes vary greatly by individual and are shaped by expectations, context, and baseline state. Experimental studies of single doses often yield null findings, while observational studies of repeated use report more benefits. The evidence remains inconclusive and warrants caution.
Current Opinion in Psychology
February 1, 2026
Karin Matko, Nicholas T. van Dam
4 citations
Mindfulness and meditation can cause adverse effects, including anxiety, depression, and traumatic re-experiencing, with 25-87% of practitioners reporting such effects and 3-37% experiencing functional impairment like inability to work. It is unclear whether these effects are temporary or lasting. Retreat attendance and pre-existing mental health conditions may increase risk, though causality is not established. The review recommends thorough screening, informed consent, and ongoing monitoring in clinical practice, along with setting clear expectations, offering psychoeducational support, and adapting interventions when appropriate to balance benefits and risks.
Current Opinion in Psychology
April 1, 2021
Ian Hamilton, Harry Sumnall
Research on the link between cannabis use and psychotic symptoms has advanced over four decades but remains complex. While some insights into the nature of this relationship have been gained, major gaps persist in understanding the full trajectory of cannabis psychosis. Treatment options are limited, and there is little evidence to reliably predict who is at risk, which could enable early intervention to reduce incidence, though complete elimination is unrealistic.
Current Opinion in Psychology
July 16, 2020
E. Kroon, L. Kuhns, J. Cousijn
Cannabis intoxication temporarily impairs learning, memory, attentional control, and motor inhibition. Evidence for lasting cognitive deficits from long-term heavy use is mixed, partly because studies struggle to accurately measure cannabis exposure, control for lingering acute effects, and account for differences in cognitive tests and participant groups. Better research designs and multidisciplinary teamwork are needed to clarify these long-term effects.
Current Opinion in Psychology
August 1, 2019
Cortland J. Dahl, R. Davidson
Mindfulness serves as a foundation for other contemplative practices, such as those aimed at developing prosocial qualities, cognitive insight, and a sense of meaning and purpose. The article discusses how different forms of meditation may contribute to well-being and highlights the role of worldview as a variable in mindfulness practice. It raises questions to guide future research on the relationships between mindfulness, other meditation practices, and well-being.
Current Opinion in Psychology
August 1, 2019
Marieke K. van Vugt, Amir Moye, Swagath Sivakumar
Computational modeling can illuminate how meditation alters cognition and predict how those effects transfer to new tasks. The authors argue that such models clarify similarities and differences among meditation practices, helping map the landscape of contemplative techniques. Although computational modeling has rarely been applied to meditation research, the authors contend it holds significant promise for advancing the field.
Current Opinion in Psychology
August 1, 2019
Brandon G King, Quinn A Conklin, Anthony P Zanesco et al.
Residential meditation retreats are a distinct type of intervention that can help researchers understand the effects of intensive, continued meditation practice as expertise develops, filling a gap left by studies of brief inductions or short-term programs. The article describes how retreats differ from other meditation interventions in design and highlights their value for studying meditation's effects on cognition, health, and well-being over time.
Current Opinion in Psychology
August 1, 2019
Tania Singer, Veronika Engert
A 9-month longitudinal mental training study compared three practice types: present-moment attention and interoception, socio-emotional processes (compassion and loving kindness), and meta-cognitive processes with perspective-taking. Each practice type produced distinct effects across phenomenological experience, structural brain changes, social cognition, altruism, and physiological stress responses (including cortisol). The findings argue for a more differentiated view of mindfulness and meditation, showing that different mental practices yield specific rather than uniform benefits.
Current Opinion in Psychology
August 1, 2019
David R. Vago, Resh S Gupta, Sara W. Lazar
A review of three systematic reviews on mindfulness-based meditation and cognitive outcomes identifies methodological limitations and confounding factors that hinder interpretation of results. The analysis covers what is known about how mindfulness affects cognition, variable criteria defining mindfulness-based interventions, limitations of cognitive measurement tools, and methodological quality of trials. Constructive recommendations are offered for advancing research on mindfulness and cognition.
Current Opinion in Psychology
July 11, 2019
David S. Black, Georgia Christodoulou, S. Cole
Social stressors alter immune response gene expression through signal transduction, a process by which extracellular signals trigger intracellular changes. Mindfulness meditation, a practice for cultivating attention and self-regulation, may influence this process by modulating brain activity patterns related to attention, self-regulation, and threat evaluation. The article reviews controlled trials on mindfulness meditation and gene expression, then proposes a conceptual model grounded in social genomics theory. It hypothesizes that mindfulness meditation could alter the signal transduction that regulates immune response gene expression, suggesting a potential mind-body pathway for stress-related cellular changes.
Current Opinion in Psychology
April 18, 2019
Yi-Yuan Tang, R. Tang, M. Rothbart et al.
Frontal midline theta (FMθ) brain activity may index the mental control needed to maintain a meditative state, while alpha activity relates to the preparation required to achieve it. Without sufficient mental preparation, achieving a meditative state is difficult. Evidence from human and animal studies suggests that mindfulness meditation induces white matter plasticity by increasing FMθ activity, offering insights into how to effectively enhance brain plasticity through meditation.
Current Opinion in Psychology
January 28, 2019
Z. Segal, Sona Dimidjian, Rachel Vanderkruik et al.
Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy combines mindfulness meditation with cognitive theory to treat recurrent mood disorders. Despite strong evidence for its effectiveness, MBCT is not widely used in routine clinical or population health settings. Two key questions remain unresolved: how important is home practice of mindfulness skills for achieving benefits, and what role can digital platforms play in delivering mindfulness programs. Answering these questions could improve future research and practice, helping contemplative practices support self-care.
Current Opinion in Psychology
January 7, 2019
Willoughby B. Britton
Mindfulness-related processes, including mindful attention, emotion regulation, and meditation practice, may not be universally beneficial. Instead, they can follow an inverted U-shaped trajectory where their typically positive effects turn negative under certain conditions, such as excessive or misapplied practice. This review synthesizes evidence of non-monotonicity, boundary conditions, and negative effects across these processes. The authors propose a research agenda to investigate mindfulness as a non-monotonic phenomenon, which could explain the mix of positive, null, and negative effects observed in studies and help maximize the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions.
Current Opinion in Psychology
November 10, 2018
R. Baer
Mindfulness is most often measured with self-report questionnaires, which have reasonable psychometric properties and contribute to understanding mindfulness and its effects on health and wellbeing. Measuring mindfulness as a multidimensional construct reveals that present-moment awareness can be unhelpful unless paired with a nonjudgmental, nonreactive stance; nonjudgment and nonreactivity may be only weakly related to present-moment awareness in people without meditation experience. Differences between psychological and Buddhist conceptions of mindfulness are inevitable and not necessarily problematic.