Investigating the effects of focused attention (mantra) meditation on mismatch negativity: Insights into sensory and cognitive processing using an intensity oddball paradigm.
Chandan Srivastava, Jamie A O'Reilly, Rashmi Gupta
Neuroscience April 6, 2025 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2025.02.017 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Cross-sectional study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Mantra meditation experts and novices |
| Intervention | Mantra meditation |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Event-related potential Focused attention Intensity oddball Intensity transition Mantra meditation Mismatch negativity |
| Citations | 2 |
| Key findings | Mismatch negativity amplitude did not differ between mantra meditation experts and novices, suggesting MMN may be insensitive to meditation expertise or influenced by enhanced attentional skills in novices. |
Abstract
Over the past fifty years, research has enhanced our understanding of meditation and its effects on cognition. Meditation is particularly promising due to its long-term (trait) effects, which persist outside meditation sessions. Advances in neuroimaging have enabled the study of these effects using neural markers such as mismatch negativity (MMN), which reflects the involuntary shift of attention to unexpected acoustic changes. This shift is modulated by attentional control, a key area where focused attention (FA) meditation training offers improvements. However, studies investigating the trait effects of FA meditation on MMN have produced mixed results, with previous research introducing confounds from short-term (state) effects that may influence trait-specific assessments. Furthermore, most research has focused on breath-based FA meditation, overlooking other prominent forms of FA meditation that might differentially modulate MMN, as per recent studies. The current study, therefore, examines mantra meditation, a widely practiced form of FA meditation, with an adequately powered sample to address the mixed findings in the literature. The study employs an intensity oddball paradigm instead of commonly used frequency oddball paradigms to assess whether MMN arises from higher-order cognitive processes or sensory adaptation. The findings reveal similar MMN amplitude in experts and novices, suggesting that MMN may be insensitive to meditation expertise or influenced by the enhanced attentional skills of novices. Additionally, a unidirectional polarity shift in event-related potential to deviant stimuli suggests that meditation effects on MMN are likely to be interpreted in the context of higher-order deviance detection mechanism.
Comparable studies
Other cross-sectional and survey studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construct Validity of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire in Meditating and Nonmeditating Samples Experienced meditators and nonmeditating comparison groups | 2008 | Cross-sectional study | |
| Neural Correlates of Dispositional Mindfulness During Affect Labeling Adult participants | 2007 | Observational cross-sectional | n = 27 |
| Assessing mindfulness in children and adolescents: Development and validation of the Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure (CAMM). School-aged children and adolescents | 2011 | Cross-sectional validation study | n = 1,413 |
| Mindfulness and self-compassion as predictors of psychological wellbeing in long-term meditators and matched nonmeditators Experienced meditators and demographically matched nonmeditators | 2012 | Cross-sectional study | n = 152 |
| Mechanisms of Action in the Inverse Relationship Between Mindfulness and Psychological Distress Undergraduates | 2008 | Cross-sectional, correlational |
Citations in the library
Cites 23
- Mind the Hype: A Critical Evaluation and Prescriptive Agenda for Research on Mindfulness and Meditation Perspectives on Psychological Science October 10, 2017
- Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences June 28, 2007
- The psychological effects of meditation: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin May 14, 2012
- Neural mechanisms of attentional control in mindfulness meditation Frontiers in Neuroscience 2013
- Focused attention, open monitoring and loving kindness meditation: effects on attention, conflict monitoring, and creativity – A review Frontiers in Psychology September 23, 2014
and 18 more in the library