Consciousness and cognition
February 1, 2019
Oussama Abdoun, Jelle Zorn, Stefano Poletti et al.
44 citations
A meditation training protocol helped novices accurately describe their mental states during two types of meditation: focused attention and open monitoring. After several weeks of daily practice, participants' self-reported ratings of their experience (i) differed between the two meditation states, (ii) reflected how much they had practiced and how tired they felt, and (iii) matched changes in their reaction times during a task. These patterns were better explained by features of daily practice than by a tendency to give socially desirable answers. The results suggest that novice practitioners can reliably report their inner experience, supporting further study of this training approach.
Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging
April 1, 2025
Antoine Lutz, Oussama Abdoun, Yair Dor-Ziderman et al.
18 citations
The neurophenomenology research program, pioneered by Varela, rigorously examines subjective experience using first-person methodologies inspired by phenomenology and contemplative practices. This review explores recent advancements, particularly their application to meditation practices and potential clinical translations. It examines innovative multidimensional phenomenological assessment tools designed to capture subtle, dynamic shifts in experiential content and structures of consciousness during meditation, shedding light on mechanisms and trajectories of meditation practice.
Biological psychiatry global open science
July 1, 2025
Oussama Abdoun, Arnaud Poublan-Couzardot, Stéphane Offort et al.
5 citations
Most meditation research uses trait questionnaires that miss moment-to-moment changes during practice. The Lyon Assessment of Meditation Phenomenology (LAMP) questionnaire was developed to capture contextual, emotional, bodily, attentional, cognitive, and metacognitive dimensions of meditation. Fifty-three experienced meditators completed the LAMP after each session during a 10-day retreat. Over 60% of the assessed dimensions changed significantly over time, with distinct trajectories depending on meditation type (focused attention vs. open monitoring) and individual expertise. Three clusters of individual trajectories emerged, linked to prior experience and difficulties during the retreat. Findings on pain regulation were replicated and extended. This approach offers a rich, dynamic characterization of meditative experience.
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
July 3, 2026
Sébastien Czajko, Jelle Zorn, Oussama Abdoun et al.
Nondual meditation, specifically Open Presence (OP) practice, is associated with reduced bodily self susceptibility and increased large-scale integration of functional brain networks. Expert meditators with over 10,000 hours of practice showed lower global network eccentricity during OP compared to novices, particularly in dorsal attention, ventral attention, and frontoparietal networks, indicating greater integration. These neural patterns correlated positively with measures of bodily self illusion and negatively with cognitive defusion, a construct reflecting reduced self-grasping toward thoughts. The findings suggest that nondual awareness involves alterations in self-representation and large-scale functional brain integration.
Oussama Abdoun, Arnaud Poublan-Couzardot, Stéphane Offort et al.
preprint
A new questionnaire, the Lyon Assessment of Meditation Phenomenology (LAMP), captures how meditation experiences change over time across seven domains: context, intention, emotion, body, attention, thought, and self-awareness. Fifty-three experienced meditators completed the LAMP after each session during a 10-day retreat. Over 60% of the measured dimensions changed significantly, with distinct patterns for focused attention versus open monitoring meditation and for meditators of different expertise levels. Three clusters of individual trajectories emerged, linked to prior experience and difficulties during the retreat. The approach also replicated and extended prior findings on pain regulation. The findings suggest that meditation experience is dynamic and multidimensional, and the LAMP may help deepen understanding of meditation's mechanisms.