Regular, brief mindfulness meditation practice improves electrophysiological markers of attentional control
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience January 1, 2012 Adam Moore, Thomas Gruber, Jennifer Derose et al. 323 citations
Regular, brief mindfulness training improves attentional control and alters brain activity. In a randomized controlled EEG study, 40 meditation-naïve adults were assigned to either a wait-list or a meditation group that received three hours of training and practiced 10 minutes daily for 16 weeks. Stroop task performance and brain recordings at baseline, 8, and 16 weeks showed two distinct neural changes in meditators: an early effect (160–240 ms) at posterior sites indicating improved focusing of attention, and a later effect (310–380 ms) at central posterior sites reflecting reduced cognitive resource use during object recognition, especially for conflicting stimuli. Source analyses linked these changes to occipitotemporal and inferior temporal areas. The findings suggest mindfulness meditation enhances the efficiency of attentional resource allocation.