• Clinical hypnosis
• palliative care
• self-hypnosis
• spiritual care
• spiritual healing

• Humans
• Hypnosis/methods
• Palliative Care/methods
• Spirituality
• Spiritual Therapies/methods
• Neurosciences/methods

• Advanced meditation
• Consciousness
• Electroencephalography
• Functional neuroimaging
• Meditation
• Mindfulness
• Non-invasive brain stimulation
• Well-being

• Humans
• Meditation
• Consciousness/physiology
• Brain/physiology
• Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

• cerebrovascular accident
• fatigue
• infarction
• rehabilitation
• review
• stroke

• Buddhist meditation
• alertness
• arousing
• fMRI
• meta-analysis
• wakefulness

• Alzheimer’s disease
• Kirtan Kriya
• electroencephalography
• meditation
• mild cognitive impairment
• mindfulness
• smart home
• subjective cognitive decline

• EEG microstates
• Oxytocin
• Social imitation
• Spontaneous thoughts

• Alpha oscillations
• EEG
• Meditation
• Mind wandering

This work represents one of the first attempts to examine the effects of meditation on the processing of written single words. In the present longitudinal study, participants conducted a lexical decision task and rated the affective valence of nouns before and after a 7-week class in mindfulness meditation, loving-kindness meditation, or a control intervention. Both meditation groups rated the emotional valence of nouns more neutral after the interventions, suggesting a general down-regulation of emotions. In the loving-kindness group, positive words were rated more positively after the intervention, suggesting a specific intensification of positive feelings. After both meditation interventions, response times in the lexical decision task accelerated significantly, with the largest facilitation occurring in the loving-kindness group. We assume that meditation might have led to increased attention, better visual discrimination, a broadened attentional focus, and reduced mind-wandering, which in turn enabled accelerated word recognition. These results extend findings from a previous study with expert Zen meditators, in which we found that one session of advanced meditation can affect word recognition in a very similar way.

• Attention
• Emotions/physiology
• Humans
• Longitudinal Studies
• Meditation/psychology
• Reaction Time

• Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
• Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst
• Bergische Universität Wuppertal (3089)

• Lempel–Ziv
• electroencephalography
• entropy
• meditation
• oscillations
• power spectra

• COVID-19
• PTSD
• anxiety
• coping
• depression
• mental health
• mindfulness
• psychosis

Zazen is one of several meditation technics that pretends to reach calmness, reducing interference, and controlling awareness practiced by many people in the world. Zazen practitioners claim that a natural sense of wellbeing, spontaneous joy and self-fulfilling is achieved with its practice. Neuroscientific evidence shows that important modifications in the neuronal electric activity with compromise of several brain structures has been observed, especially those that are involved in modulation of attention. Our laboratory was interested to study the possible behavioural effects of a short time zazen practice to a group of secondary students of public or private high schools, with no previous training in any meditation technics. Two groups, 15-17 years old coursing the 4th or 5th year of their secondary study, one receiving zazen training (n = 31), and the other one recreation activities (n = 45) were selected. All subjects were tested with the Tower of London, Tower of Hanoi, Wisconsin Card Sorting and Stroop test to evaluate the cognitive abilities, at the beginning of the experiment (t₀) and at the end of the experiment (t₁, about 3 months later). Results showed that in the Tower of London and Tower of Hanoi, zazen group displayed significant less movements to solve the task, compared to Control. No differences were found between both groups in solving the Wisconsin Card Sorting test, but in the Stroop test zazen group was superior to Control in making significant less mistakes during solving the task. Results are compatible with a positive effect of zazen training in behavioural abilities of attention and planning strategies in secondary students.

Three broad organizing strategies have been used to study meditation practices: (1) consider meditation practices as using similar processes and so combine neural images across a wide range of practices to identify the common underlying brain patterns of meditation practice, (2) consider meditation practices as unique and so investigate individual practices, or (3) consider meditation practices as fitting into larger categories and explore brain patterns within and between categories. The first organizing strategy combines meditation practices defined as deep concentration, attention to external and internal stimuli, and letting go of thoughts. Brain patterns of different procedures would all contribute to the final averages, which may not be representative of any practice. The second organizing strategy generates a multitude of brain patterns as each practice is studied individually. The rich detail of individual differences within each practice makes it difficult to identify reliable patterns between practices. The third organizing principle has been applied in three ways: (1) grouping meditations by their origin—Indian or Buddhist practices, (2) grouping meditations by the procedures of each practice, or (3) grouping meditations by brain wave frequencies reported during each practice. Grouping meditations by their origin mixes practices whose procedures include concentration, mindfulness, or effortless awareness, again resulting in a confounded pattern. Grouping meditations by their described procedures yields defining neural imaging patterns within each category, and clear differences between categories. Grouping meditations by the EEG frequencies associated with their procedures yields an objective system to group meditations and allows practices to “move” into different categories as subjects’ meditation experiences change over time, which would be associated with different brain patterns. Exploring meditations within theoretically meaningful categories appears to yield the most reliable picture of meditation practices.

• Brain
• Humans
• Meditation
• Mindfulness

• MRI
• VBM
• default mode network (DMN)
• fMRI
• gray matter
• mindfulness meditation
• positive affect

• green social prescribing
• happiness
• life satisfaction
• mind–body interventions
• nature-based interventions

• Female
• Happiness
• Humans
• Life Change Events
• Male
• Mind-Body Therapies
• Nature
• Personal Satisfaction
• Public Health/economics
• Quality of Life

Neural activity is known to oscillate within discrete frequency bands and the synchronization between these rhythms is hypothesized to underlie information integration in the brain. Since strict synchronization is only possible for harmonic frequencies, a recent theory proposes that the interaction between different brain rhythms is facilitated by transient harmonic frequency arrangements. In this line, it has been recently shown that the transient occurrence of 2:1 harmonic cross-frequency relationships between alpha and theta rhythms (i.e. f_alpha≈ 12 Hz; f_theta≈ 6 Hz) is enhanced during effortful cognition. In this study, we tested whether achieving a state of ‘mental emptiness’ during meditation is accompanied by a relative decrease in the occurrence of 2:1 harmonic cross-frequency relationships between alpha and theta rhythms. Continuous EEG recordings (19 electrodes) were obtained from 43 highly experienced meditators during meditation practice, rest and an arithmetic task. We show that the occurrence of transient alpha:theta 2:1 harmonic relationships increased linearly from a meditative to an active cognitive processing state (i.e. meditation < rest < arithmetic task). It is argued that transient EEG cross-frequency arrangements that prevent alpha:theta cross-frequency coupling could facilitate the experience of ‘mental emptiness’ by avoiding the interaction between the memory and executive components of cognition.

• Intervention
• Neuroscience
• Personalized
• Prevention
• Transdisciplinary
• Translational

• Humans
• Interdisciplinary Communication
• Models, Theoretical
• Neurosciences
• Precision Medicine
• Preventive Medicine
• Translational Research, Biomedical

• Adolescent
• Adult
• Arousal
• Case-Control Studies
• Discrimination, Psychological
• Emotions/physiology
• Female
• Humans
• Individuality
• Intelligence
• Language
• Male
• Meditation/methods
• Meditation/psychology
• Mental Processes/physiology
• Middle Aged
• Personality Tests
• Reaction Time
• Young Adult

• Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
• Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst

• Electrophysiology
• Meditation
• Neuroimaging
• States of consciousness

• Contemplative neuroscience
• Education
• Meditation
• Mindfulness
• Self
• Teachers

• Awareness/physiology
• Brain/physiology
• Education
• Humans
• Mindfulness
• Neurosciences

• R01 CA140692 NCI NIH HHS

• Anterior cingulate
• Attention
• Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
• Meditation
• fMRI

• Intervention
• Neuroscience
• Personalized
• Prevention
• Transdisciplinary
• Translational

• awareness
• meditation
• mind wandering
• mindfulness
• resting state

Cognitive impairment is one of the most common problem saffecting older adults. In this study, we investigated whether Tai Chi Chuan and Baduanjin practice can modulate mental control functionand the resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the cognitive control network in older adults. Participants in the two exercise groups practiced either Tai Chi Chuan or Baduanjin for 12 weeks, and those in the control group received basic health education. Memory tests and fMRI scans were conducted at baseline and at the end of the study. Seed-based (bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, DLPFC) rsFC analysis was performed. We found that compared to the controls, 1) both Tai Chi Chuan and Baduanjin groups demonstrated significant improvements in mental control function; 2) the Tai Chi Chuan group showed a significant decrease in rsFC between the DLPFC and the left superior frontal gyrus (SFG) and anterior cingulate cortex; and 3) the Baduanjin group showed a significant decrease in rsFC between the DLPFC and the left putamen and insula. Mental control improvement was negatively associated with rsFC DLPFC-putamen changes across all subjects. These findings demonstrate the potential of Tai Chi Chuan and Baduanjin exercises in preventing cognitive decline.

• awareness
• contemplative science
• definition
• mechanisms
• meditation
• mindfulness
• neuroscience
• self-regulation

• Attention distraction strategy
• Focused-breathing strategy
• Mind wandering
• Mindfulness
• Thought suppression
• Working memory capacity

• Cognitive aging
• Emotion regulation
• Event-related potentials
• Executive control
• Mindfulness meditation training
• Randomized active controlled study

• Fundação Bial (PT)
• Institute for Health Research (LJMU, UK)

• Attention
• Mindfulness meditation
• Prefrontal cortex
• fMRI

In this article, we present ideas related to three key aspects of mindfulness training: the regulation of attention via noradrenaline, the importance of working memory and its various components (particularly the central executive and episodic buffer), and the relationship of both of these to mind-wandering. These same aspects of mindfulness training are also involved in the preparation and execution of movement and implicated in the pathophysiology of psychosis. We argue that by moving in a mindful way, there may be an additive effect of training as the two elements of the practice (mindfulness and movement) independently, and perhaps synergistically, engage common underlying systems (the default mode network). We discuss how working with mindful movement may be one route to mindfulness training for individuals who would struggle to sit still to complete the more commonly taught mindfulness practices. Drawing on our clinical experience working with individuals with severe and enduring mental health conditions, we show the real world application of these ideas and how they can be used to help those who are suffering and for whom current treatments are still far from adequate.

• attention
• default mode network
• locus coeruleus/adrenaline
• mindful movement
• mindfulness
• psychosis
• tai chi
• working memory

In the last decade, a number of neuroimaging studies have investigated the neurophysiological effects associated with contemplative practices. Meditation-related changes in resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) have been previously reported, particularly in the default mode network, frontoparietal attentional circuits, saliency-related regions, and primary sensory cortices. We collected functional magnetic resonance imaging data from a sample of 12 experienced Zen meditators and 12 meditation-naïve matched controls during a basic attention-to-breathing protocol, together with behavioral performance outside the scanner on a set of computerized neuropsychological tests. We adopted a network system of 209 nodes, classified into nine functional modules, and a multi-stage approach to identify rsFC differences in meditators and controls. Between-group comparisons of modulewise FC, summarized by the first principal component of the relevant set of edges, revealed important connections of frontoparietal circuits with early visual and executive control areas. We also identified several group differences in positive and negative edgewise FC, often involving the visual, or frontoparietal regions. Multivariate pattern analysis of modulewise FC, using support vector machine (SVM), classified meditators, and controls with 79% accuracy and selected 10 modulewise connections that were jointly prominent in distinguishing meditators and controls; a similar SVM procedure based on the subjects’ scores on the neuropsychological battery yielded a slightly weaker accuracy (75%). Finally, we observed a good correlation between the across-subject variation in strength of modulewise connections among frontoparietal, executive, and visual circuits, on the one hand, and in the performance on a rapid visual information processing test of sustained attention, on the other. Taken together, these findings highlight the usefulness of employing network analysis techniques in investigating the neural correlates of contemplative practices.

• fMRI
• functional connectivity
• meditation
• network analysis
• sustained attention

• EEG
• Graph theory
• High-frequency gamma
• Meditation
• Mindfulness
• Oscillations

• Adult
• Brain/physiology
• Brain Mapping
• Electroencephalography
• Female
• Humans
• Male
• Meditation/psychology
• Middle Aged
• Mindfulness
• Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted

• default mode network
• electroencephalography
• functional connectivity
• mean phase coherence
• mindfulness meditation

• Analysis of Variance
• Brain/physiology
• Brain Mapping
• Case-Control Studies
• Electroencephalography
• Female
• Humans
• Male
• Mindfulness
• Models, Neurological

Mindfulness is the dispassionate, moment-by-moment awareness of sensations, emotions and thoughts. Mindfulness-based interventions are being increasingly used for stress, psychological well being, coping with chronic illness as well as adjunctive treatments for psychiatric disorders. However, the neural mechanisms associated with mindfulness have not been well characterized. Recent functional and structural neuroimaging studies are beginning to provide insights into neural processes associated with the practice of mindfulness. A review of this literature revealed compelling evidence that mindfulness impacts the function of the medial cortex and associated default mode network as well as insula and amygdala. Additionally, mindfulness practice appears to effect lateral frontal regions and basal ganglia, at least in some cases. Structural imaging studies are consistent with these findings and also indicate changes in the hippocampus. While many questions remain unanswered, the current literature provides evidence of brain regions and networks relevant for understanding neural processes associated with mindfulness.

• Mindfulness
• Meditation
• Medial cortex, amygdala
• Emotional control

Mindfulness has been suggested to be an important protective factor for emotional health. However, this effect might vary with regard to context. This study applied a novel statistical approach, quantile regression, in order to investigate the relation between trait mindfulness and residual depressive symptoms in individuals with a history of recurrent depression, while taking into account symptom severity and number of episodes as contextual factors. Rather than fitting to a single indicator of central tendency, quantile regression allows exploration of relations across the entire range of the response variable. Analysis of self-report data from 274 participants with a history of three or more previous episodes of depression showed that relatively higher levels of mindfulness were associated with relatively lower levels of residual depressive symptoms. This relationship was most pronounced near the upper end of the response distribution and moderated by the number of previous episodes of depression at the higher quantiles. The findings suggest that with lower levels of mindfulness, residual symptoms are less constrained and more likely to be influenced by other factors. Further, the limiting effect of mindfulness on residual symptoms is most salient in those with higher numbers of episodes.

• Adolescent
• Adult
• Aged
• Depression/physiopathology
• Depression/psychology
• Female
• Humans
• Male
• Middle Aged
• Mindfulness
• Self Report

• Wellcome Trust
• GR067797 Wellcome Trust

• children
• meta-analysis
• mindfulness
• resilience
• school-age
• stress
• systematic review

Every experience, those we are aware of and those we are not, is embedded in a subjective timeline, is tinged with emotion, and inevitably evokes a certain sense of self. Here, we present a phenomenological model for consciousness and selfhood which relates time, awareness, and emotion within one framework. The consciousness state space (CSS) model is a theoretical one. It relies on a broad range of literature, hence has high explanatory and integrative strength, and helps in visualizing the relationship between different aspects of experience. Briefly, it is suggested that all phenomenological states fall into two categories of consciousness, core and extended (CC and EC, respectively). CC supports minimal selfhood that is short of temporal extension, its scope being the here and now. EC supports narrative selfhood, which involves personal identity and continuity across time, as well as memory, imagination and conceptual thought. The CSS is a phenomenological space, created by three dimensions: time, awareness and emotion. Each of the three dimensions is shown to have a dual phenomenological composition, falling within CC and EC. The neural spaces supporting each of these dimensions, as well as CC and EC, are laid out based on the neuroscientific literature. The CSS dynamics include two simultaneous trajectories, one in CC and one in EC, typically antagonistic in normal experiences. However, this characteristic behavior is altered in states in which a person experiences an altered sense of self. Two examples are laid out, flow and meditation. The CSS model creates a broad theoretical framework with explanatory and unificatory power. It constructs a detailed map of the consciousness and selfhood phenomenology, which offers constraints for the science of consciousness. We conclude by outlining several testable predictions raised by the CSS model.

• awareness
• consciousness
• default mode network
• emotion
• flow experience
• meditation
• self
• time