Meditation and neurofeedback: A systematic scoping review, synthesis, and future directions
Hagar Tal, Winson F.z. Yang, Matthew D. Sacchet
Imaging Neuroscience 2026 DOI: 10.1162/imag.a.1284 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Systematic review Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Meditation practitioners (clinical and non-clinical) |
| Topics | Anxiety Meditation |
| Keywords | Psychological intervention Neurofeedback Systematic review Phenomenology philosophy Psychotherapist Cognitive psychology Applied psychology Interpretability Transcendental meditation Interpretative phenomenological analysis Field mathematics Clinical psychology |
| Key findings | Neurofeedback consistently modulates neural activity, but evidence for corresponding improvements in behavior, phenomenology, or transferable meditative skills remains limited. |
Abstract
Neurofeedback (NF) has been proposed as a tool to support and expand access to meditation practice. Despite growing interest, no comprehensive review has examined neurofeedback for meditation-based interventions (NF-MED) across the full spectrum of practices. Here, we conducted a scoping systematic review according to PRISMA guidelines, mapping the NF-MED field across both clinical and non-clinical contexts, with three aims: (1) assess the current state of NF-MED studies, (2) evaluate how NF-MED meditative constructs and whether neural modulation shows evidence of transfer to behavioral or phenomenological outcomes, and (3) provide methodological recommendations for future work. Our analysis shows that the field is dominated by proof-of-concept studies and marked by substantial heterogeneity in design, implementation, and outcome measures, which hampers the assessment of efficacy and applicability of NF-MED. While NF-MED has been shown to consistently modulate neural activity, evidence for corresponding improvements in behavior, phenomenology, or transferable meditative skills remains limited. Additional research is thus essential for determining whether NF-MED can help practitioners overcome common meditative barriers, such as anxiety and self-doubt, and whether NF-MED can accelerate meditative development across the training spectrum from novice to advanced meditators.
Comparable studies
Other systematic reviews and meta-analyses on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-being Diverse adult clinical populations | 2014 | Meta-analysis | n = 3,515 |
| Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Stress Management in Healthy People: A Review and Meta-Analysis Healthy subjects | 2009 | Systematic review and meta-analysis | |
| The psychological effects of meditation: A meta-analysis. Nonclinical groups of adult meditators | 2012 | Meta-analysis | n = 163 |
| Efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy in Prevention of Depressive Relapse Adults with recurrent depression in full or partial remission | 2016 | Meta-analysis of individual patient data from randomized controlled trials | n = 1,258 |
| Mindfulness‐Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness‐Based Cognitive Therapy – a systematic review of randomized controlled trials | 2011 | Systematic review |
Citations in the library
Cites 49
- Default Mode Network Activity and Connectivity in Psychopathology Annual Review of Clinical Psychology March 29, 2012
- Loving-kindness and compassion meditation: potential for psychological interventions. Clinical Psychology Review July 26, 2011
- 20 years of the default mode network: A review and synthesis Neuron May 10, 2023
- Conceptual and methodological issues in research on mindfulness and meditation. American Psychologist October 1, 2015
- Investigating the phenomenological matrix of mindfulness-related practices from a neurocognitive perspective. American Psychologist October 1, 2015
and 44 more in the library