Imagine feeling intense stress: palms sweaty, heart racing, breathing shallow. Sensations of the body often come to the forefront when describing experiences of emotion or stress, yet these physiological changes are separate from the subjective ‘feeling’ of these states that we experience mentally. My previous work has shown that individuals whose subjective experience tracks strongly …
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Linking embodiment with the neural circuitry of mindfulness and reward
Mindfulness is suggested to contribute to emotion regulation by enhancing a person’s mind-body-environment connection. Mindfulness has also been suggested to enhance awareness of distinct embodied states’ reward values – eg. people typically prefer joy over fear – and promote autonomous shifting towards more rewarding states, naturally contributing to emotion regulation. Our aim is to develop …
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Neurophenomenology of felt experience at rest: brain microstate dynamics and their association with spontaneous thought
The brain transitions through distinct states of activity many times each second. These brain “microstate” sequences can be characterized using recordings of brain electrical activity (EEG), which reflects neuronal coordination at millisecond time-scales relevant for human cognition. Ongoing perceptions, thoughts, and experiences are presumed to depend on the coordinated activity of brain networks at this …
Transforming habits from the heart: From good intentions to reliable prosocial response
Good intentions are important to live a moral life, but they are not enough because people often do not act on them. Indeed, moving from thought to action often requires cognitive resources that can be elusive, in which case we rely on more automatic patterns of thinking and acting. When these automatisms are non-virtuous, individuals …
Mindfulness-to-Meaning theory and eudaimonic appraisals of positive autobiographical events
The Mindfulness-to-Meaning theory proposes that the established relationship between mindfulness and measures of wellbeing may be due to its effects on emotion regulation. More specifically, they argue that the practice of mindfulness evokes more flexible awareness and the ability to suspend our automatic thoughts, emotions, and actions in-the-moment. As such, it can help create distance …
A real-time fMRI study to link subjective experience with brain network dynamics during craving
The goal of this study is to investigate the first-person experiences of craving –thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, etc. –and link these experiences to brain activation patterns, to gain insights into craving and how to extinguish it. This study will use a novel technology, real time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rtfMRI) “neurofeedback,” in which brain activation …
Intracranial circuits underlying Deep Slow Breathing and its palliative effects
Francisco Varela believed that the present moment of experience coincided with transient patterns of synchronous oscillations between different neuronal populations. Our findings suggest that these transient patterns of synchronous oscillations throughout the brain are modulated by breathing (e.g., breathing as an organizing principle for neuronal oscillations). While current neuroscientific methods of brain stimulation are limited, …
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Cultivating mental imagery through prayer
Prayer is a cornerstone of religious life, practiced by over 50% of Americans on a daily basis(1). Prayer practices foster a variety of contemplative experiences with deep personal and cultural significance(2,3). For example, evangelical or charismatic Christians—who make up nearly 10% of the global population(4)—often report seeing visions that they experience as originating from an …
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Investigating the impact of yoga on brain aging: A randomized controlled trial
With the aging global population, dementia is becoming an increasing concern for global public health. Currently, some evidence suggests that meditation and yoga practice may help decrease risk for dementia and cognitive decline. Furthermore, these interventions have the strengths of being inexpensive and scalable, while also being helpful for brain aging as well as general …
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Ethical Know-How and Christian Contemplative Practices: A Case Study from Late Antiquity
In his lectures to the Università di Bologna published in 1992, Francisco Varela, Chilean neuroscientist and co-founder of the Mind & Life Institute, developed the theoretical infrastructure for a lively intersection between contemplative practices of “three wisdom traditions of the East” (as he puts it) and neuroscientific research on embodied cognition and mindfulness practices. Varela …
