Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
November 8, 2004
Antoine Lutz, Lawrence L. Greischar, Nancy B. Rawlings et al.
1,325 citations
Long-term Buddhist practitioners can self-induce sustained, high-amplitude gamma-band oscillations and phase-synchrony in the brain during meditation, as measured by electroencephalography. These EEG patterns differ from those of non-practitioners, especially over lateral frontoparietal electrodes. Before meditation, practitioners already show a higher ratio of gamma-band activity (25-42 Hz) to slow oscillatory activity (4-13 Hz) over medial frontoparietal electrodes compared to controls. This ratio increases sharply during meditation across most of the scalp and remains elevated afterward. The findings suggest that mental training involves temporal integrative mechanisms and may produce both short-term and long-term neural changes.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
June 28, 2007
Julie A. Brefczynski‐Lewis, Antoine Lutz, Hillary S. Schaefer et al.
988 citations
Meditation is a family of mental training practices that familiarize practitioners with specific mental processes. In age-matched participants, using functional MRI, activation in brain regions involved in sustained attention showed an inverted u-shaped curve: expert meditators with an average of 19,000 hours of practice had more activation than novices, but experts with an average of 44,000 hours had less activation. In response to distracter sounds, experts versus novices had less brain activation in regions related to discursive thoughts and emotions and more activation in regions related to response inhibition and attention. Correlation with hours of practice suggests possible plasticity in these mechanisms.
PLoS ONE
March 25, 2008
Antoine Lutz, Julie Brefczynski-Lewis, Tom Johnstone et al.
942 citations
During loving-kindness-compassion meditation, expert practitioners show greater brain activation in the insula and limbic regions when hearing emotional sounds, especially negative ones, compared to novices. This enhanced response correlates with self-reported meditation intensity. Experts also exhibit increased activity in the amygdala, temporo-parietal junction, and posterior superior temporal sulcus, suggesting improved detection of emotional vocalizations and mental state reasoning. The findings indicate that training in cultivating positive emotion alters neural circuits associated with empathy and theory of mind.
PLoS Biology
May 4, 2007
Heleen A. Slagter, Antoine Lutz, Lawrence L. Greischar et al.
762 citations
Intensive meditation training reduces the attentional blink—a phenomenon where a second target in a rapid stream is often missed when it appears shortly after a first target. Three months of daily mental practice led to a smaller attentional blink and decreased brain-resource allocation to the first target, measured by a smaller P3b brain potential. Individuals with the largest reduction in resource allocation to the first target showed the greatest improvement in detecting the second target. These findings indicate that mental training enhances control over limited attentional resources and supports lifelong brain plasticity.
American Psychologist
October 1, 2015
Antoine Lutz, Amishi P. Jha, John D. Dunne et al.
724 citations
Mindfulness meditation practices are a set of attention-based, regulatory, and self-inquiry training regimes used for wellbeing and psychological health. This article examines the construct of mindfulness in psychological research and reviews recent nonclinical work. Instead of proposing a single definition, mindfulness is interpreted as a continuum of practices involving states and processes that can be mapped into a multidimensional phenomenological matrix expressed in a neurocognitive framework. This matrix serves as a heuristic to guide next-generation research hypotheses from cognitive/behavioral and neuroscientific perspectives. The review identifies significant gaps in the literature and outlines new directions for research.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
January 22, 2002
Antoine Lutz, Jean-Philippe Lachaux, Jacques Martinerie et al.
500 citations
Brain responses to identical stimuli vary greatly even during well-designed cognitive tasks, and this variability is thought to stem from fluctuations in a person's cognitive context—such as attention, spontaneous thoughts, and task strategy. By combining first-person reports with neural recordings, researchers reduced this noise. Subjects viewed a three-dimensional illusion while their brain activity was recorded and they reported their cognitive context. Clustering trials by these reports revealed that patterns of neural synchrony in frontal electrodes before stimulation depended on the degree of preparation and immediacy of perception. These patterns were stable across recordings and influenced both behavioral performance and subsequent brain responses, showing that first-person data can help detect and interpret neural processes.
Journal of Neuroscience
October 21, 2009
Antoine Lutz, Heleen A. Slagter, Nancy B. Rawlings et al.
499 citations
Three months of intensive meditation training improved the ability to sustain attention, as measured by dichotic listening task performance and electroencephalography. Training reduced variability in attentional processing of target tones, shown by enhanced theta-band phase consistency of neural responses over anterior brain areas and reduced reaction time variability. Individuals with the greatest increase in neural response consistency showed the largest decrease in behavioral response variability. Reduced variability in neural processing also occurred for unattended deviant tones, suggesting meditation affects both distracter and target processing, possibly by enhancing entrainment of neuronal oscillations to sensory input rhythms.
Journal of Neuroscience
October 31, 2012
Micah Allen, Martin Dietz, Karina S. Blair et al.
389 citations
A six-week randomized trial compared mindfulness training to an active control condition in healthy adults. Both groups improved on a response-inhibition task, but only the mindfulness group showed reduced emotional conflict on an affective Stroop task. The mindfulness group also showed greater dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity during executive processing, suggesting increased use of top-down control. No overall group differences emerged for negative affect-related reaction times or brain responses. However, participants who practiced mindfulness the most showed improved response inhibition and greater recruitment of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, and right anterior insula during negative-valence processing. The findings indicate that mindfulness training engages distinct neural mechanisms at progressive stages and that optimal application may depend on context.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2011
Heleen A. Slagter, Richard J. Davidson, Antoine Lutz
295 citations
The adult brain remains changeable through experience, but learning typically improves performance only on the trained task, not on similar new ones. This perspective argues that systematic mental training, such as meditation, can produce learning that is not specific to a particular stimulus or task but instead enhances core cognitive processes. Meditation practices are designed to improve defined mental functions, and several features of meditation regimens—including variable stimulus input, metacognitive focus, task difficulty, arousal regulation, and training duration—may foster this process-specific learning. The authors discuss key neuroimaging findings and methodological challenges in studying meditation training effects.
IEEE Signal Processing Magazine
January 1, 2008
Richard J. Davidson, Antoine Lutz
282 citations
Neuroplasticity refers to the brain's ability to change in response to experience. This article reviews how different styles of meditation practice produce distinct changes in brain structure and function. The authors describe evidence that meditation can alter brain regions involved in attention, emotion regulation, and self-awareness, with variations depending on the specific meditation technique, such as focused attention or open monitoring. The findings suggest that meditation induces measurable neuroplastic changes, but the exact nature of these changes varies by practice style.
Psychophysiology
May 22, 2008
Sahib S. Khalsa, David Rudrauf, António R. Damásio et al.
276 citations
Meditation traditions claim that paying attention to internal body sensations increases awareness of them, but scientific evidence is lacking. Experienced meditators (Tibetan Buddhist and Kundalini) were compared to nonmeditators matched for age and body mass index on a heartbeat detection task, a standard measure of interoceptive awareness. Contrary to predictions, meditators showed no superior performance across several sessions and respiratory conditions. However, meditators consistently rated their interoceptive performance as better and the task as easier. These results suggest that practicing attention to internal body sensations, a core feature of meditation, does not enhance the ability to sense the heartbeat at rest.
Emotion
January 1, 2010
D. Perlman, Tim V. Salomons, Richard J. Davidson et al.
203 citations
Pain can be regulated through different cognitive mechanisms. Two meditation practices were compared during noxious heat: Focused Attention, which may regulate negative affect via sensory gating, and Open Monitoring, which may regulate negative affect through nonjudgmental awareness. Long-term meditators, compared to novices, reported significantly less unpleasantness, but not intensity, of pain while practicing Open Monitoring. No significant effects were found for Focused Attention. This finding highlights a possible regulatory mechanism underlying meditation-based clinical interventions such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.
Biological research
January 1, 2003
David Rudrauf, Antoine Lutz, Diego Cosmelli et al.
194 citations
Francisco Varela's work on subjectivity and consciousness is reviewed, presenting a view of subjectivity as deeply intertwined with biological and physical roots. His theory of concrete, embodied dynamics, grounded in autonomous systems, posits that biological autonomy defines life and identity as emergent, circular self-producing processes. Embodiment explains how a cognitive self arises from an organism's internal regulation and sensorimotor coupling, with global subjective properties emerging from component interactions and constraining local processes through recursive morphodynamics. Neurophenomenology uses first-person methods to examine experience, creating mutual constraints between biophysical data and subjective accounts, aiming to ground disciplined insight in biophysical emergence. Varela's contribution is framed as a "biophysics of being."
Neuropsychology Review
August 4, 2021
Tim Whitfield, Thorsten Barnhofer, Rebecca L. Acabchuk et al.
193 citations
Mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) show a small but significant benefit for cognitive performance, particularly for executive function and working memory, according to a meta-analysis of 56 randomized controlled trials involving 2,931 adults. The overall effect favoring MBPs over comparators was small (g = 0.15). Benefits were strongest for non-clinical samples and adults over 60, and when MBPs were compared to inactive controls rather than active ones. No significant effects were found for other cognitive domains. Most studies had unclear risk of bias, and some statistical results were unreliable. The findings partially support the idea that mindfulness practice can enhance certain cognitive abilities.
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.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
April 17, 2014
Benjamin Baird, Jonathan Smallwood, Antoine Lutz et al.
169 citations
When the mind wanders, the brain's response to sensory input becomes less consistent from one moment to the next, particularly in theta-band oscillations over parietal regions. Using an experience sampling method with continuous EEG, the authors found that task-unrelated thought reduced the P1 event-related potential, replicating prior work. Time-frequency analysis showed decreased theta-band phase-locking, indicating lower temporal fidelity in the brain's response to stimuli. Additionally, mind-wandering required more cortical processing to re-engage with a task. These results suggest that attentional states shape neural processing of sensory input by affecting the consistency of oscillatory responses.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
December 22, 2022
Christopher Timmermann, Prisca R. Bauer, Olivia Gosseries et al.
145 citations
A neurophenomenological framework is proposed for studying non-ordinary states of consciousness (NSCs) such as hypnosis, meditation, and psychedelics. NSCs involve shifts in what appears to the experiencer or how it appears, enabling investigation of the plastic and dynamic nature of experience across mind, brain, body, and context. The approach highlights NSCs as catalysts of transformation in clinical practice by refining understanding of relationships between subjective experience and neural dynamics. Ethical implications for standard conceptions of health and pathology are outlined, along with the crucial role of experience-based know-how in NSC research and application.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
September 29, 2008
Heleen A. Slagter, Antoine Lutz, Lawrence L. Greischar et al.
135 citations
The human mind has limited information processing capacity, as shown by the attentional blink—a failure to identify the second of two targets presented close together. This deficit is thought to arise from overinvesting limited resources in processing the first target. Previous research found that intensive meditation training aimed at reducing elaborate object processing decreased brain resource allocation to the first target and improved identification of the second.
PLoS ONE
August 28, 2013
Fabio Ferrarelli, Richard Smith, Daniela Dentico et al.
125 citations
Long-term Buddhist meditators with about 8,700 mean lifetime hours of practice show increased gamma power (25-40 Hz) in parietal-occipital regions during non-rapid eye movement sleep compared to meditation-naive individuals. This increase is specific to gamma frequencies, unrelated to spontaneous arousal levels during NREM sleep, and positively correlated with the length of lifetime daily meditation practice. The findings indicate that meditation practice produces measurable changes in spontaneous brain activity and suggest that EEG gamma activity during sleep may serve as a sensitive marker of long-lasting plastic effects of meditative training on brain function.
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.
Neuroscience of consciousness
January 1, 2021
Lars Sandved-Smith, Casper Hesp, Jérémie Mattout et al.
116 citations
Meta-awareness, the ability to notice the current content of consciousness, is crucial for controlling cognitive states like directing attention. This paper models meta-awareness and attentional control using hierarchical active inference, treating mental actions as policy choices over higher-level cognitive states. A further hierarchical level represents meta-awareness states that modulate the expected confidence in the mapping between observations and hidden cognitive states. Simulations of mind-wandering during a sustained selective attention task illustrate how this inferential architecture enables accessing and controlling cognitive states, offering a computational foundation for a phenomenology of mental action and self-monitoring.
Alzheimer s Research & Therapy
June 22, 2018
Gaël Chételat, Antoine Lutz, Eider M. Arenaza‐Urquijo et al.
106 citations
Long-term meditation practice may help preserve brain structure and function from age-related decline. A pilot study found that six older adult expert meditators had higher gray matter volume and/or glucose metabolism in the prefrontal, anterior and posterior cingulate cortex, insula, and temporo-parietal junction compared to 67 age-matched controls. These preliminary findings suggest meditation could counteract adverse psycho-affective factors like stress, depression, anxiety, and neuroticism that affect sleep, cognition, and mental health in aging populations and increase Alzheimer's disease risk. The European Commission-funded Silver Santé Study will investigate further through two randomized controlled trials with 316 older adults, testing 2-month and 18-month meditation, English learning, or health education programs.
Alzheimer s & Dementia Translational Research & Clinical Interventions
January 1, 2018
Géraldine Poisnel, Eider M. Arenaza‐Urquijo, Fabienne Collette et al.
103 citations
The Age-Well clinical trial examines whether an 18-month meditation-based intervention can improve mental health and well-being in older adults by targeting attentional and emotional aspects of aging. The trial randomly assigns 137 cognitively unimpaired older adults to the meditation program, a foreign language training program matched for structure and duration, or a passive control group. The study measures cognitive, behavioral, biological, neuroimaging, and sleep outcomes to assess the intervention's impact and underlying mechanisms. This is the first long-term nonpharmacological trial to address both emotional and cognitive dimensions of aging with such comprehensive assessments.
Frontiers in human neuroscience
January 1, 2013
Micah Allen, Jonathan Smallwood, Joanna Christensen et al.
100 citations
Mind-wandering, or task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs), is common and often impairs performance on demanding tasks, but new findings show it can also enhance metacognitive abilities. Using the Error Awareness Task (EAT), researchers found that individual differences in average TUTs strongly predicted stop accuracy, while variability in TUTs specifically predicted error awareness. Brain imaging revealed that both response inhibition and TUT ratings activated the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of the default mode network (DMN), but in distinct dorsal areas, suggesting functional segregation. Co-activation of salience and default mode regions during error awareness linked monitoring to TUTs. The results suggest that fluctuations between internal and external thought, rather than constant focus, characterize individuals with greater metacognitive monitoring, and balancing these modes may optimize task performance.
PloS one
January 1, 2014
Donal G Maccoon, Katherine A Maclean, Richard J Davidson et al.
97 citations
Eight weeks of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) training did not improve sustained attention more than an active control program (Health Enhancement Program, HEP) in a randomized trial with 63 community participants. The study used a visual continuous performance task to measure attention. Although the main hypotheses were not confirmed, some evidence suggested improved visual discrimination similar to effects seen in other research. Attentional sensitivity was not affected by MBSR, and it remains unclear whether mindfulness might positively affect vigilance. The results highlight procedural modifications needed for future research on sustained attention in similar samples.