Most meditation traditions integrate attention to the internal state of the body into the practice of meditation, and teach that a central effect of the meditative practice is increased awareness of the body. To test whether meditators have increased body awareness we examined the performance of two groups of experienced meditators compared to one group …
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Regulating emotion in social situations: An fMRI study of experienced Buddhist meditators
In previous work, experienced meditators demonstrated sustained high-amplitude gamma oscillations during meditation at frequencies associated with mental processes such as attention, working memory, and perception, suggesting that meditation might lead to long-term behavioral and neural changes. We examined the effects of meditation experience on attention, perception, and decision-making through two studies of individuals with extensive …
Fellow Spotlight: Norm Farb
In this month’s Fellow Spotlight we are pleased to share the work of Norman Farb, Associate Professor of Psychology and Principal Investigator of the Regulatory and Affective Dynamics Laboratory at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Norm studies the social neuroscience of the self and human emotion, with a focus on how biases in self-representation shape emotions to determine …
Neural effects of mindfulness meditation training on working memory
We are presently undertaking a series of psychophysical pilot studies, recording extensive data from a small number of individuals. Using breath as the object of meditation, we are searching for EEG signals (possibly in the gamma-frequency band) that correlate with attentional quality. In response to a cue, subjects indicate by button press their subjective level …
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Trust and Christian contemplative practice: A social neuroscientific study of spiritual capital in a contemplative tradition
Growing recognition of the benefits of contemplative practice for the reduction of harmful stress and the improvement of prosocial behavior is prompting research into how these effects arise. We define contemplative practice as intentionally attempting to suspend all discursive and evaluative thought. In practice, most forms of contemplative practice emphasize compassion for self and others, …
The effects of mindfulness meditative training on impairments in affect regulation associated with the experience and anticipation of pain in fibromyalgia patients
We hypothesized that 8-week mindfulness meditative training (MMT) would significantly decrease 1) cognitive/emotional biases associated with perception of pain and general dysfunction in fibromyalgia (FM) and 2) the magnitudes of various symptoms in FM patients. Changes were documented in self-reported measures of primary and secondary symptoms, mindfulness, cognitive/emotional biases associated with the experience of pain …
Mindfulness-based interventions for depression: Possible neurophysiological mechanisms
Previous studies have indicated that mindfulness and other forms of meditation training are associated with improvements in sleep quality. However, none of these studies used objective polysomnographic sleep recordings. The aim of this study was to examine whether mindfulness meditation was associated with improvements in objectively measured sleep, according to polysomnography (PSG), and to relate …
The functional plasticity of attention
Recent studies suggest attention may be trained as a skill. While a large body of literature suggests that expertise in domains like chess or music requires 5,000 to 10,000 hours of practice, most previous studies examined changes in attention following far less training. We report performance on different attention tasks by 32 Buddhist meditators, who …
Understanding the neural correlates of attention
Interest in investigating the neural correlates of different meditation practices is increasing within the neuroscience community. In particular, shamatha practice, which strengthens the ability of a practitioner to sustain a concentrated, single-pointed focus of attention, is a natural focus for attention researchers within cognitive neuroscience. However, studies of the medium- and long-term effects of shamatha …
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Neural correlates of meta-consciousness events as experienced during Zen meditation practice
During concentration tasks, spontaneous attention shifts occurs towards self-centered matters. Little is known about the brain oscillatory activity underlying these mental phenomena. We recorded 128-channels electroencephalographic activity from 12 subjects performing a breath-counting task. Subjects were instructed to press a button whenever, based on their introspective experience, they realized their attention had drifted away from …
