Frontiers in Neuroscience
March 26, 2018
Darrin J. Lee, Edwin Kulubya, Philippe R. Goldin et al.
256 citations
Different forms of meditation—focused attention, open-monitoring, transcendental, and loving-kindness—produce distinct patterns of brainwave activity. Meditators show greater overall oscillatory activity than meditation-naïve adults, with larger changes as training increases. Focused attention and open-monitoring both increase anterior theta activity, but only focused attention affects posterior theta. Alpha power rises in posterior regions during both practices; in anterior regions, focused attention bilaterally increases alpha, while open-monitoring decreases left-sided alpha. Gamma activity is similar in frontal areas across practices but varies in parietal and occipital regions. These distinct neural signatures may help explain the cognitive and therapeutic benefits of each practice and guide neuromodulation targets.
The Journal of Positive Psychology
September 11, 2012
Shauna L. Shapiro, Hooria Jazaieri, Philippe R. Goldin
206 citations
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is associated with improvements in mindful attention, emotion, and well-being, and amount of meditation practice is linked to greater improvement in mindful attention. At a two-month follow-up, MBSR also showed improvements in moral reasoning and ethical decision making. This preliminary evidence suggests MBSR may facilitate moral reasoning and decision making in adults.
The Journal of Positive Psychology
March 24, 2015
Hooria Jazaieri, Ihno A. Lee, Kelly Mcgonigal et al.
90 citations
A nine-week compassion meditation program reduced mind wandering to neutral topics and increased self-directed caring behaviors among 51 adults. More frequent meditation practice was linked to less mind wandering to unpleasant topics and more mind wandering to pleasant topics, and both changes were associated with increased caring behaviors for oneself and others. Overall, mind wandering did not mediate the relationship between meditation frequency and caring behaviors when all topics were combined, but topic-specific mind wandering did play a role.
April 8, 2024
Saampras Ganesan, Aki Tsuchiyagaito, Greg J. Siegle et al.
2 citations
preprint
Meditation practices, which have been adapted into manualized interventions for conditions like depression, pain, addiction, and anxiety, show therapeutic promise, but their neuroscientific basis remains unclear. Current neuroimaging studies rely on small, heterogeneous datasets that vary in practice types, participant experience, clinical targets, and imaging methods, limiting generalizability and replicability. To address this, the ENIGMA-Meditation consortium was formed as a global collaboration to conduct systematic meta- and mega-analyses of distributed neuroimaging data using standardized methods. This framework aims to improve statistical power and rigorously characterize the neural mechanisms underlying meditation's effects on psychological and cognitive attributes, advancing the field of contemplative neuroscience.