We are working to increase diversity within neuroscience of meditation studies to reflect the increasingly diverse population of the United States and to improve representation of minorities. We are using community engagement and dialogue with the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC) in Oakland, CA, one of the most diverse meditation communities in the U.S. EBMC …
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An ethnographic analysis of the integration of contemplatives in neuroimaging laboratories
Research into the physiological effects of meditation comprises a significant domain within neuroimaging studies. While such research studies contemplatives and their practices, the practitioners themselves have yet to be fully integrated into the research process. Appropriately, a key issue at the 2013 Mind & Life Summer Research Institute was the need to integrate contemplatives and …
Mindfulness and the neurophysiological substrates of fear conditioning
The goals of the research grant were to examine the effects of mindfulness meditation training on pain and fear learning processes, in order to validate the efficacy of this practice in disorders involving fear of threatening stimuli (eg. anxiety, chronic pain). The effects long-term meditation training on fear learning and pain were assessed in highly …
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Neural mechanisms of self-transcendence: Insights from noninvasive brain stimulation
Religious beliefs and mystical experiences can be found in human societies across the globe and throughout history. Self-transcendence (ST)—a state characterized by the loss of boundaries between self and others and a feeling of connectedness to everything—is a primary feature of such spiritual experiences. However, little is known about the brain’s role in this uniquely …
Does meditation cause pain relief through endogenous opioids?
There is growing evidence that meditation practice can reduce the experience of pain. However, what is going on in the brain during meditation that causes this pain relief has been a mystery. We guessed that meditation might reduce pain by releasing natural brain chemicals called endogenous opioids. Endogenous opioids reduce pain via the same brain …
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Neural dynamics of attention and meta-attention during meditation
Mindfulness meditation can reduce the effects of mind-wandering, but how? Meditation may reduce mind-wandering directly by reducing distracting thoughts or improving sustained attention. Alternatively, meditation may not reduce mind-wandering itself, but enhance the ability to detect and correct mind-wandering. Disentangling these mechanisms is difficult because subjective reports of mind-wandering depend on both factors, but in …
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Mindfulness and beyond: A qualitative study of advanced Mahasi meditators’ experience
The recent convergence of Asian and Western culture has generated interest in meditation as a practice and clinical intervention. The Burmese Mahasi style of vipassana meditation, in particular, has been a wellspring from which mindfulness-based treatment protocols have been derived. And while these clinical interventions have proven efficacious in treating a wide range of psychological …
The varieties of contemplative experience
Meditation practices and interventions, derived from contemplative religious traditions, have become increasingly popular in clinical, educational and scientific research contexts. Meditation is being applied to the treatment of a wide range of psychiatric conditions, from depression to psychosis, and implemented in schools, businesses and prisons to promote performance and wellbeing and decrease stress and anxiety. …
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The neural basis of enhanced introspective accuracy in long-term meditation practitioners
The accuracy of subjective reports, especially those involving introspection of one’s own internal processes, remains unclear. ‘Introspective accuracy’ (IA) can putatively be quantified by a variety of methods that combine introspective reports of subjective, mental phenomena with some objective (neural, physiological, or behavioral) measure of these same phenomena. A subject’s IA with respect to a …
A longitudinal training study to delineate the specific causal effects of open monitoring versus focused attention techniques on emotional regulation skills
Difficulties with emotion regulation could be a core mechanism of mood and anxiety disorders. Various meditation-based interventions are found to ameliorate a wide range of psychological problems however, it is crucial to understand how different types of meditation improve emotional abilities to develop structured treatment and preventative protocols for emotional disorders. Based on a commonly …
