Anthony Zanesco

University of Kentucky | UKY · Department of Psychology

Background Mindfulness training (MT) programs have demonstrated utility as cognitive training tools, but there is little consensus on the neurophysiological processes that may underlie its benefits. It has been posited that intrinsic brain activity recorded at rest reflects the functional connectivity of large-scale brain networks and may provide i...

The tendency for our minds to wander is a pervasive and disruptive influence on continued task performance. Models of sustained attention have implicated mind wandering, moments when attention has turned inwards toward task-unrelated thought, in characteristic patterns of worsening performance with greater time-on-task, known as the vigilance decre...

Exposure to traumatic events is associated with post-traumatic stress symptomology (PTSS) in a variety of populations. PTSS is also associated with self-reported everyday cognitive failures, which are acknowledged attentional lapses experienced in one’s naturalistic everyday environment. While a growing literature suggests that PTSS is associated w...

Considerable research has now documented the beneficial effects of mindfulness-based practices on psychological functioning. Less is known about the long-term durability of such changes following formal meditation training. In a sample of adults (N = 67, 52% female, ages 22-70 years), we examined changes in 16 measures of psychological adaptive fun...

The tendency for individuals to mind wander is often measured using experience sampling methods in which probe questions embedded within computerized cognitive tasks attempt to catch episodes of off-task thought at random intervals during task performance. However, mind-wandering probe questions and response options are often chosen ad hoc and vary...

Throughout the brief history of contemplative neuroscience, electroencephalography (EEG) has been a valuable and enduring methodology used to elucidate the neural correlates and mechanisms of mindfulness. Yet despite its longevity and demonstrated utility, EEG has been increasingly overlooked in favor of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)...

Background Given its putative roles in mediating prosocial behavior, attachment bonds, and stress physiology, oxytocin modulation has been hypothesized to be a biological correlate of the salubrious effects of meditation practice. Here we investigated the effects of a month-long silent meditation retreat on changes in oxytocin, and the related horm...

Attention has a seemingly inevitable tendency to turn inward toward our thoughts. Mind-wandering refers to moments when this inward focus diverts attention away from the current task-at-hand. Mind-wandering is thought to be ubiquitous, having been estimated to occur between 30% and 50% of our waking moments. Yet, it is unclear whether this frequenc...

Introduction Mind wandering, a phenomenon in which attention drifts away from the task-at-hand, is associated with deleterious effects on performance and well-being. As such, efforts to curb mind wandering are warranted. Recently, mindfulness training (MT) has been found to protect against mind wandering. Yet, many MT programs are at risk of fallin...

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is one of the most common inherited causes of intellectual disabilities. While there is currently no cure for FXS, EEG is considered an important method to investigate the pathophysiology and evaluate behavioral and cognitive treatments. We conducted EEG microstate analysis to investigate resting brain dynamics in FXS parti...

The large-scale electrophysiological events known as electroencephalographic microstates provide an important window into the intrinsic activity of whole-brain neuronal networks. The spontaneous activity of coordinated brain networks, including the ongoing temporal dynamics expressed by microstates, are thought to reflect individuals’ neurocognitiv...

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic drastically accelerated the need for studies examining the effectiveness of programs to bolster psychological well-being, particularly for at-risk groups, such as older adults (OAs). Mindfulness Training (MT) has been suggested as a well-suited program for this purpose. The present study examined the impact of a 4...

Over the last decade, EEG resting-state microstate analysis has evolved from a niche existence to a widely used and well-accepted methodology. The rapidly increasing body of empirical findings started to yield overarching patterns of associations of biological and psychological states and traits with specific microstate classes. However, currently,...

Contemplative traditions have long affirmed that compassion and kindness are trainable skills. While research on meditation practice has recently flourished, the mechanisms that might engender such changes are still poorly understood. Here, we present a motivational framework to explain why meditation training should increase concern for others and...

Attention has a seemingly inevitable tendency to turn inward towards our thoughts. Mind wandering refers to moments when this inward focus diverts attention away from the task-at-hand. Mind wandering is ubiquitous, having been estimated to occur between 30-50% of our waking moments and proposed to increase in frequency with time during ongoing task...

Objectives Contemplative practice can occasion powerful psychological experiences. Yet few empirical studies have investigated whether their occurrence is associated with intensive meditation-based interventions. Here, we assess the prevalence of profound, meaningful, and mystical experiences in experienced meditators during a month-long insight me...

Objectives A core assumption of meditation training is that cognitive capacities developed during formal practice will transfer to other contexts or activities as expertise develops over time. This implies that meditation training might influence domain-general neurocognitive systems, the spontaneous activity of which should be reflected in the dyn...

ObjectivesA core assumption of meditation training is that cognitive capacities developed during formal practice will transfer to other contexts or activities as expertise develops over time. This implies that meditation training might influence domain-general neurocognitive systems, the spontaneous activity of which should be reflected in the dyna...

Contemplative traditions have long affirmed that compassion and kindness are trainable skills. While research on meditation practice has recently flourished, the mechanisms that might precipitate such changes are still poorly understood. Here, we present a motivational framework to explain why meditation training should increase concern for others...

This preregistration template guides researchers who wish to preregister their EEG projects, more specifically studies investigating event-related potentials (ERPs) in the sensor space.

Working memory (WM) is critical for successful task performance and higher order cognitive functions, such as planning and decision-making. Yet, WM can become imperiled over periods of stress and high demand. This is particularly true of military service members who depend on peak cognitive functioning to maintain operational readiness and achieve...

Background Meditation retreats are characterized by intensive or concentrated periods of meditation practice, commonly undertaken in a residential setting. Although research indicates that meditation training can positively influence physical and mental health outcomes, the biological consequences of meditation retreat interventions are relatively...

The amount of cognitive control required during a task may fluctuate over the course of performing a task. The dynamic upregulation of cognitive control has been proposed to occur in response to conflict or in response to the need for additional control during demanding cognitive tasks. Specifically, upregulation in cognitive control results in imp...

Assessment of mind wandering commonly entails the use of experience sampling to capture episodes in the midst of their occurrence. Time series sequences of responses to experience sampling probes have been shown to exhibit consequential temporal dynamics, including power-law scaling behavior in their fluctuations across increasing time scales. This...

EEG microstates represent transient electrocortical events that reflect synchronized activities of large-scale networks, which allows investigations of brain dynamics with sub-second resolution. We recorded resting EEG from 38 children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Development (ASD) and 48 age, IQ, sex, and handedness-matched typically devel...

Objectives Mindfulness training (MT) has emerged as a promising tool to promote cognitive functioning and psychological health. As a result, demand for scalable dissemination of MT is increasing across many time-pressured settings. One such setting is the military family. Military spouses face numerous challenges and yet there is a paucity of evide...

Objective: Posttraumatic stress is a significant issue facing military service members and can negatively impact working memory (WM), which is critical for performance success. Yet, few studies have examined the link between self-reported posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and WM performance in active-duty military cohorts. The present study uti...

Mindfulness training (MT) has been shown to benefit sustained attention and mind wandering. Yet, few studies have examined whether benefits differ as a function of individual differences in mind wandering. The sustained attention to response task (SART) measured task accuracy (A′), response time variability (response time intraindividual coefficien...

Thought dynamically evolves from one moment to the next even in the absence of external stimulation. The extent to which patterns of spontaneous thought covary with time-varying fluctuations in intrinsic brain activity is of great interest but remains unknown. We conducted novel analyses of data originally reported by Portnova et al. (2019) to exam...

Meditation practice is believed to foster states of mindful awareness and mental quiescence in everyday life. If so, then the cultivation of these qualities with training ought to leave its imprint on the activity of intrinsic functional brain networks. In an intensive longitudinal study, we investigated associations between meditation practitioner...

Brain activity continuously and spontaneously fluctuates during tasks of sustained attention. This spontaneous activity reflects the intrinsic dynamics of neurocognitive networks, which have been suggested to differentiate moments of externally directed task focus from episodes of mind wandering. However, the contribution of specific electrophysiol...

Capacity-limited working memory (WM) systems have been known to degrade in older age. In line with inhibition-deficit theories of aging, WM deficits in older individuals have been attributed to failures in the ability to suppress the processing of task irrelevant, distracting information. Yet, other cognitive mechanisms underlying age-related WM de...

Experience sampling of attentional states has consistently demonstrated that mind wandering is a frequent and disruptive obstacle when one must sustain attention during continuous task performance. Yet, methods commonly used to assess the subjective experience of mind wandering may conflate several potential sources of meaningful variation in indiv...

Spontaneous broadband electroencephalography (EEG) demonstrates short moments of stability in the spatial distribution of the head-surface voltage topography. This phenomenon underlies the premise behind segmenting multichannel EEG into topographically defined brain states, known as EEG microstates. Microstate segmentation methods commonly identify...

Prior work has linked meditation practice to improvements in interference control. However, the mechanisms underlying these improvements are relatively unknown. In the context of meditation training, improvements in interference control could result either from increases in controlled attention to goal-relevant stimuli, or from reductions in automa...

Streams of thought vary in content from one moment to the next, and these temporal patterns have been argued to be critical to understanding the wandering mind. But few analytic methods have been proposed that can account for both the content and temporal ordering of categorical experience sampling thought probes over time. In the present study, I...

Attention and working memory are at risk of degradation over intensive intervals in groups engaged in highly demanding jobs. Accordingly, there is great interest in identifying training regimes to promote cognitive resilience in such populations. Herein, US Army Soldiers were assigned to either an 8-week, 16-h mindfulness training (MT) program (n =...

Objectives Mindfulness training (MT) guidelines recommend that trainers have familiarity and knowledge of the training group as well as extensive MT expertise. Herein, a “train-the-trainer” (TTT) dissemination model was investigated for military service members whose access to MT is threatened by a scarcity of qualified trainers. Methods US Army M...

Microstates reflect transient brain states resulting from the synchronous activity of brain networks that predominate in the broadband EEG. There has been increasing interest in how the functional organization of the brain varies across individuals, or the extent to which its spatiotemporal dynamics are state dependent. However, little research has...

Motivated by the growing interest in promoting resilience in first responders and other professionals who face threatening professional circumstances, the current study investigated the effectiveness of offering a short-form mindfulness training (MT) program to firefighters. The overarching question was to determine if psychological and cognitive m...

Streams of thoughts vary in content from one moment to the next, and these temporal patterns have been argued to be critical to understanding the wandering mind. But few analytic methods have been proposed that can account for both the content and temporal ordering of thoughts over time. In the present study, I apply sequence analysis and related m...

Experience sampling of attentional states has consistently demonstrated that mind wandering is a frequent and disruptive obstacle when one must sustain their attention during continuous task performance. Yet, methods commonly used to assess the subjective experience of mind wandering may conflate several potential sources of meaningful variation in...

Microstates reflect transient brain states resulting from the activity of synchronously active brain networks that predominate in the broadband EEG time series. Despite increasing interest in understanding how the functional organization of the brain varies across individuals, or the extent to which its spatiotemporal dynamics are state dependent,...

Various forms of mental training have been shown to improve performance on cognitively demanding tasks. Individuals trained in meditative practices, for example, show generalized improvements on a variety of tasks assessing attentional performance. A central claim of this training, derived from contemplative traditions, posits that improved attenti...

The capacity to focus one's attention for an extended period of time can be increased through training in contemplative practices. However, the cognitive processes engaged during meditation that support trait changes in cognition are not well characterized. We conducted a longitudinal wait-list controlled study of intensive meditation training. Ret...

Cognitive control, which allows for the selection and monitoring of goal-relevant behavior, is dynamically upregulated on the basis of moment-to-moment cognitive demands. One route by which these demands are registered by cognitive control systems is via the detection of response conflict. Yet working memory (WM) demands may similarly signal dynami...

Contemporary investigations of mindfulness and meditation have predominately emphasized the short-term effects of brief inductions or standardized, multi-week interventions in people with little to no prior meditation experience. Considerably less is known about the effects of continued or intensive meditation practice as proficiency and expertise...

The ability to discriminate among goal-relevant stimuli tends to diminish when detections must be made continuously over time. Previously, we reported that intensive training in shamatha (focused-attention) meditation can improve perceptual discrimination of difficult-to-detect visual stimuli [MacLean, K. A., Ferrer, E., Aichele, S. R., Bridwell, D...

The ability to discriminate among goal-relevant stimuli tends to diminish when detections must be made continuously over time. Previously, we reported that intensive training in shamatha (focused-attention) meditation can improve perceptual discrimination of difficult-to-detect visual stimuli (MacLean et al., 2010). Here we extend these findings to...

Experiences of mindful awareness and mental quiescence are thought to pervade daily life with continued meditation practice, and ought to leave their imprint in the activity of distributed brain networks. Yet few studies have characterized the dynamics of resting brain activity following meditation-based training. In a longitudinal study, experienc...

There has been a proliferation of mindfulness training (MT) programs offered across a multitude of settings, including military, business, sports, education, and medicine. As such, ascertaining training effectiveness and determining best practices for program delivery are of the utmost importance. MT is often introduced to promote an array of desir...

Contemporary investigations of mindfulness and meditation have predominately emphasized the short-term effects of brief inductions or standardized, multi-week interventions in people with little to no prior meditation experience. Considerably less is known about the effects of continued or intensive meditation practice as proficiency and expertise...

Cognitive ability is a key selection criterion for entry into many elite professions. Herein, we investigate whether mindfulness training (MT) can enhance cognitive performance in elite military forces. The cognitive effects of a short-form 8-hour MT program contextualized for military cohorts, referred to as Mindfulness-Based Attention Training (M...

Sustained attention is effortful, demanding, and subject to limitations associated with age-related cognitive decline. Researchers have sought to examine whether attentional capacities can be enhanced through directed mental training, with a number of studies now offering evidence that meditation practice may facilitate generalized improvements in...

Sustained attention is effortful, demanding, and subject to limitations associated with age-related cognitive decline. Researchers have sought to examine whether attentional capacities can be enhanced through directed mental training, with a number of studies now offering evidence that meditation practice may facilitate generalized improvements in...

A growing body of evidence suggests that meditation training may have a range of salubrious effects, including improved telomere regulation. Telomeres and the enzyme telomerase interact with a variety of molecular components to regulate cell-cycle signaling cascades, and are implicated in pathways linking psychological stress to disease. We investi...

A growing body of evidence suggests that meditation training may have a range of salubrious effects, including improved telomere regulation. Telomeres and the enzyme telomerase interact with a variety of molecular components to regulate cell-cycle signaling cascades, and are implicated in pathways linking psychological stress to disease. We investi...

Cognitive ability is a key selection criterion for entry into many elite professions. Herein, we investigate whether mindfulness training (MT) can enhance cognitive performance in elite military forces. The cognitive effects of a short-form 8-h MT program contextualized for military cohorts, referred to as Mindfulness-Based Attention Training (MBAT...

We present a novel manner in which to visualize the coding of qualitative data that enables representation and analysis of connections between codes using graph theory and network analysis. Network graphs are created from codes applied to a transcript or audio file using the code names and their chronological location. The resulting network is a re...

It is challenging for individuals to maintain their attention on ongoing cognitive tasks without being distracted by task-unrelated thought. The wandering mind is thus a considerable obstacle when attention must be maintained over time. Mental training through meditation has been proposed as an effective method of attenuating the ebb and flow of at...

Telomeres, the nucleoprotein complexes at the ends of chromosomes, protect chromosomes from instability. Because telomeric DNA progressively shortens as cells divide, telomere length can serve as a marker of cellular aging and physiological stress. Shorter telomeres have been linked to chronic psychological stress and mortality risk in humans. Rece...

Despite the growing body of meditation research, relatively little is known about the effects of intensive retreat practice or the virtue-base practices known as the Brahma Viharas. There is also little research on the ways in which meditation practices may elicit changes at the biological level, and how these may in turn contribute to behavioral c...

Meditation practices purportedly help people develop focused and sustained attention, cultivate feelings of compassionate concern for self and others, and strengthen motivation to help others who are in need. We examined the impact of 3 months of intensive meditative training on emotional responses to scenes of human suffering. Sixty participants w...

Meditation training has been shown to enhance attention and improve emotion regulation. However, the brain processes associated with such training are poorly understood and a computational modeling framework is lacking. Modeling approaches that can realistically simulate neurophysiological data while conforming to basic anatomical and physiological...

Various forms of mental training have been shown to improve performance on cognitively demanding tasks. Individuals trained in meditative practices, for example, show generalized improvements on a variety of tasks assessing attentional performance. A central claim of this training, derived from contemplative traditions, posits that improved attenti...

The dynamics of psychological processes, as they unfold within individuals over time, are fundamental to understanding behavioral, emotional, and cognitive development. The incorporation of multiple methods of measurement and observational time scales can greatly enhance knowledge of these dynamics. However, as researchers examine increasingly comp...

Objective: Cognitive perseverations that include worry and rumination over past or future events may prolong cortisol release, which in turn may contribute to predisease pathways and adversely affect physical health. Meditation training may increase self-reported mindfulness, which has been linked to reductions in cognitive perseverations. However...