Flow, as defined by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (1975), is a holistic experience in which individuals are fully immersed in an activity, resulting in a diminished sense of self and an altered perception of time. To investigate the global neural dynamics underlying flow, we employed EEG microstate analysis, which capture the spatial and temporal properties of dominant transient global brain states...
Research suggests that ADHD is characterized by dominant Default-Mode Network (DMN) and diminished Task Positive Network (TPN) activity, which has been linked to detrimentally affecting attention and executive task-dependent functioning. Interventions targeting this DMN-TPN interplay may be clinically important in ameliorating ADHD symptoms. This hypothesis was explored using frequency and...
The Default Mode Network was a key finding for cognitive neuroscience, but being the result of a data-driven analysis of resting-state fMRI data, its psychological and clinical implications have been difficult to elucidate. This is because in the resting-state paradigm we cannot directly correlate an observable specific task with specific brain connectivity patterns, and therefore inferences...
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is regarded a potential early stage of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and associated with a significantly increased risk of progression to AD. This study aims to evaluate whole-brain static functional connectivity (SFC) disruptions with the default mode network (DMN) seed points in patients with MCI by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI), and...
Different levels of reduced consciousness characterise human sleep stages at the behavioural level. On electroencephalography (EEG), the identification of sleep stages predominantly relies on localised oscillatory power within distinct frequency bands. Several theoretical frameworks converge on the central significance of long-range information sharing in maintaining consciousness, which...
Mindfulness meditation is a contemplative practice that is informed by Buddhism. It has been proven effective for improving mental and physical health in clinical and non-clinical contexts. To date, mainstream dialogue and scientific research on mindfulness has focused primarily on short-term mindfulness training and applications of mindfulness for reducing stress. Understanding advanced...
Consciousness always requires some representational content; that is, one can only be conscious about something. However, the presence of conscious experience (awareness) alone does not determine whether its content is in line with the external and physical world. Dreams, apart from certain forms of hallucinations, typically consist of non-veridical percepts, which are not recognized as false,...
A growing body of clinical and cognitive neuroscience studies have adapted a broadband EEG microstate approach to evaluate the electrical activity of large-scale cortical networks. However, the functional aspects of these microstates have not yet been systematically reviewed. Here, we present an overview of the existing literature and systematize the results to provide hints on the functional...
The effects of short-term mindfulness are associated with the different patterns (autonomic, audio guided, or experienced and certified mindfulness instructor guided mindfulness). However, robust evidence for reported the impacts of different patterns of mindfulness on mental health and EEG biomarkers of undergraduates is currently lacking. Therefore, we aimed to test the hypotheses that...
Neuroimaging studies have provided evidence that extensive meditation practice modifies the functional and structural properties of the human brain, such as large-scale brain region interplay. However, it remains unclear how different meditation styles are involved in the modulation of these large-scale brain networks. Here, using machine learning and fMRI functional connectivity, we...
Mindfulness meditation helps to improve attentional capacity. However, the neural correlates that indicate the mechanism through which mindfulness improves attention are unclear. To address this gap, we aimed to assess the effects of mindfulness training on sustained attentional capacity. Event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with the modified sustained attention response task (mSART) were...
Meditation practices have been claimed to have a positive effect on the regulation of mood and emotions for quite some time by practitioners, and in recent times there has been a sustained effort to provide a more precise description of the influence of meditation on the human brain. Longitudinal studies have reported morphological changes in cortical thickness and volume in selected brain...
The common knowledge of a uniqueness of REM sleep as a privileged scenario of dreaming still persists, although consolidated empirical evidence shows that the assumption that dreaming is just an epiphenomenon of REM sleep is no longer tenable. However, the brain mechanisms underlying dream generation and its encoding in memory during NREM sleep are still mostly unknown. In fact, only few...
Previous data suggest that the right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ) may have a specific role in abnormal body perception (ABP), including out-of-body experience. We tested this hypothesis with inhibitory (1 Hz) and excitatory (15 Hz) repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the rTPJ and a control site (CS, 5 cm posterior to the rTPJ along the lateral sulcus direction in Brodmann...
Relaxation and meditation techniques are generally characterized by focusing attention, which is associated with an increase of frontal EEG Theta. Some studies on music perception suggest an activation of Frontal Midline Theta during emotionally positive attribution, others display a lateralization of electrocortical processes in the attribution of music induced emotion of different valence....
Many meditation exercises aim at increased awareness of ongoing experiences through sustained attention and at detachment, i.e., non-engaging observation of these ongoing experiences by the intent not to analyze, judge or expect anything. Long-term meditation practice is believed to generalize the ability of increased awareness and greater detachment into everyday life. We hypothesized that...
The study assessed the brain electric mechanisms of light and deep hypnotic conditions in the framework of EEG temporal microstates. Multichannel EEG of healthy volunteers during initial resting, light hypnosis, deep hypnosis, and eventual recovery was analyzed into temporal EEG microstates of four classes. Microstates are defined by the spatial configuration of their potential distribution...