Annual Review of Clinical Psychology
December 11, 2018
Joseph Wielgosz, Simon B. Goldberg, Tammi R. A. Kral et al.
441 citations
Mindfulness meditation is increasingly used in mental health interventions and has influenced basic research on psychopathology. This review examines mindfulness meditation through clinical neuroscience, linking its core capacities to cognitive and affective constructs from the National Institute of Mental Health's Research Domain Criteria. Effective applications are noted for depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and substance abuse, with emerging work on attention disorders, traumatic stress, dysregulated eating, and serious mental illness. Priorities for future research include identifying mechanisms, refining methods, and improving implementation. Mindfulness meditation shows promise for interventions, especially for psychiatric comorbidity, and its successes and challenges offer lessons for integrating contemplative traditions with clinical science.
Psychological Assessment
October 13, 2015
Simon B. Goldberg, Joseph Wielgosz, Cortland J. Dahl et al.
180 citations
A randomized trial with 130 participants tested whether the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) validly measures dispositional mindfulness. The study included three groups: mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), an active control condition (Health Enhancement Program, HEP) that did not teach mindfulness meditation, and a waitlist control. At baseline, FFMQ facets correlated with measures of psychological symptoms and well-being, providing partial evidence for convergent validity. FFMQ scores increased for MBSR relative to the waitlist, but they also increased for HEP relative to the waitlist, and MBSR and HEP did not differ from each other. The FFMQ thus failed to show discriminant validity, raising questions about its ability to specifically measure mindfulness.
Scientific Reports
June 7, 2016
Joseph Wielgosz, Brianna S. Schuyler, Antoine Lutz et al.
124 citations
Long-term mindfulness meditation practitioners have slower baseline respiration rates than non-meditators, and more intensive retreat practice—but not routine daily practice—is linked to slower breathing, independent of age, gender, and body measures like height, weight, and BMI. Full days of meditation did not immediately change baseline respiration, suggesting the effects are long-term rather than acute. These findings point to stable, generalized changes in respiration from sustained mindfulness training.
American Journal of Psychiatry
July 28, 2022
Joseph Wielgosz, Tammi R. A. Kral, D. Perlman et al.
21 citations
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) reduced neural pain responses in healthy adults compared to an active control program. In a randomized trial with 115 participants, MBSR produced a moderate decrease in the neurologic pain signature (NPS) relative to a health enhancement program (Cohen's d=-0.43) and from before to after the intervention (d=-0.47). Subjective pain unpleasantness also decreased modestly in both MBSR and the active control compared to a waiting list. Long-term meditators reported lower pain than nonmeditators but showed no difference in neural pain signatures. Among long-term meditators, cumulative practice during intensive retreats, but not daily practice, was linked to reduced stimulus-independent pain processing (r=-0.65).
Frontiers in Psychology
January 28, 2021
Dylan Thomas Lott, Tenzin Yeshi, N. Norchung et al.
18 citations
Recent EEG studies on the early postmortem interval suggest the persistence of electrophysiological coherence and connectivity in the brain of animals and humans, reinforcing the need for further investigation of brain activity during the dying process. Under the direction of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, research was conducted in India on a postmortem meditative state (tukdam) cultivated by some Tibetan Buddhist practitioners, in which decomposition is putatively delayed. For healthy baseline and postmortem subjects, resting state EEG, mismatch negativity, and auditory brainstem response data were collected. Living subjects displayed well-defined MMN and ABR responses, but no recognizable EEG waveforms were discernable in any of the tukdam cases.
Psychological trauma : theory, research, practice and policy
July 1, 2025
Joseph Wielgosz, Robyn D Walser, Eric Kuhn et al.
8 citations
A pilot randomized trial tested a free, publicly available mobile app called Mindfulness Coach (MC) tailored to veterans with PTSD. Among 173 U.S. veterans, those assigned to self-guided use of the app showed medium reductions in PTSD symptoms and depression after eight weeks compared with a waitlist control group, but no change in psychosocial functioning. Higher-intensity users experienced greater benefits. App engagement was lower for women and minoritized subpopulations. Study attrition was high (68.4%), but diagnostic tests indicated no bias from missing data. Usability and helpfulness ratings were favorable. The findings suggest MC holds promise as a public health resource for veterans with PTSD, though further study is needed to confirm benefits and ensure consistent engagement across groups.