Michael Posner

University of Oregon | UO · Department of Psychology

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG In diesem Beitrag werden die zahlreichen Beiträge von Manfred Spitzer gewürdigt, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf seinem Ansatz zur Sucht bei digitalen Geräten liegt. Wir zeigen, dass die Abhängigkeit von einigen Substanzen das Netzwerk der exekutiven Aufmerksamkeit betrifft. Studien am Menschen zeigen, dass Meditationstraining die Konnekt...

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note...

The goal of this study was to examine commonalities in the molecular basis of learning in mice and humans. In previous work we have demonstrated that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and hippocampus (HC) are involved in learning a two-choice visuospatial discrimination task. Here, we began by looking for candidate genes upregulated in mouse ACC...

Imaging the human brain during the last 35 years offers potential for improving education. What is needed is knowledge on the part of educators of all types of how this potential can be realized in practical terms. This paper briefly reviews the current level of understanding of brain networks that underlie aspects of elementary education and its p...

At the time of the start of Biological Psychology cognitive studies had developed approaches to measuring cognitive processes. However, linking these to the underlying biology in the typical human brain had hardly begun. A critical step came in 1988 when methods for imaging the human brain in cognitive tasks began. By 1990 it was possible to descri...

For the past 50 years, cognitive scientists have assumed that training attention and self-control must be effortful. However, growing evidence suggests promising effects of effortless training approaches such as nature exposure, flow experience, and effortless practice on attention and self-control. This opinion article focuses on effortless traini...

Temperament has been defined as individual differences in biologically based reactivity and self-regulation. In this paper, we consider the efficiency of underlying neural networks as basic mechanisms for individual differences in temperament. We consider whether the effort to relate temperament to brain networks might best be at the level of tempe...

In a mouse study we found increased myelination of pathways surrounding the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) following stimulation near the theta rhythm (4-8 Hz), and evidence that this change in connectivity reduced behavioral anxiety. We cannot use the optogenetic methods with humans that were used in our mouse studies. This paper examines whether...

We define attention by three basic functions. The first is obtaining and maintaining the alert state. The second is orienting overtly or covertly to sensory stimuli. The third is selection among competing responses. These three functions correspond to three separable brain networks. Control of the alert state develops in infancy but continues to ch...

Human skill learning is marked by a gradual decrease in reaction time (RT) and errors as the skill is acquired. To better understand the influence of brain areas thought to be involved in skill learning, we trained mice to associate visual-spatial cues with specific motor behaviors for a water reward. Task acquisition occurred over weeks and perfor...

Advances in the study of brain networks can be applied to our understanding of anxiety disorders (eg, generalized anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, and posttraumatic stress disorders) to enable us to create targeted treatments. These disorders have in common an inability to control thoughts, emotions, and behaviors related to a perceived threat. Here...

The attention networks of the human brain have been under intensive study for more than twenty years and deficits of attention accompany many neurological and psychiatric conditions. There is more dispute about the centrality of attention deficits to these conditions. It appears to be time to study whether reducing deficits of attention alleviate t...

Human neuroimaging has revealed brain networks involving frontal and parietal cortical areas as well as subcortical areas, including the superior colliculus and pulvinar, which are involved in orienting to sensory stimuli. Because accumulating evidence points to similarities between both overt and covert orienting in humans and other animals, we pr...

Significance Meditation has been shown to modify brain connections. However, the cellular mechanisms by which this occurs are not known. We hypothesized that changes in white matter found following meditation may be due to increased rhythmicity observed in frontal areas in the cortex. The current study in mice tested this directly by rhythmically s...

Throughout the last 2500 years, the classification of individual differences in healthy people and their extreme expressions in mental disorders has remained one of the most difficult challenges in science that affects our ability to explore individuals' functioning, underlying psychobiological processes and pathways of development. To facilitate a...

The attention networks of the human brain are important control systems that develop from infancy into adulthood. While they are common to everyone, they differ in efficiency, forming the basis of individual differences in attention. We have developed methods for measuring the efficiency of these networks in older children and adults and have also...

Throughout the last 2500 years, the classification of individual differences in healthy people and their extreme expressions in mental disorders has remained one of the most difficult challenges in science that affects our ability to explore individuals' functioning, underlying psychobiological processes and pathways of development. To facilitate a...

Why should there now appear a journal devoted to integrating cognition and culture? We argue that new methods for examining the origin of brain networks that shape the developing mind provide the basis for such integration. These methods include imaging the human brain at rest or when performing tasks and examining individual differences in network...

Epigenetic mechanisms mediate the influence of experience on gene expression. Methylation is a principal method for inducing epigenetic effects on DNA. In this paper, we examine alleles of the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) gene that vary enzyme activity, altering the availability of the methyl donor and thus changing the efficiency of...

Significance Meditation training has been shown to reduce anxiety, lower stress hormones, improve attention and cognition, and increase rhythmic electrical activity in brain areas related to emotional control. We describe how artificially inducing rhythmic activity influenced mouse behavior. We induced rhythms in mouse anterior cingulate cortex act...

Purpose of review: Attention is a primary cognitive function critical for perception, language, and memory. We provide an update on brain networks related to attention, their development, training, and pathologies. Recent findings: An executive attention network, also called the cingulo-opercular network, allows voluntary control of behavior in...

We appreciate the many comments we received on our discussion paper, and believe that they reflect a recognition of the importance of this topic worldwide. We point out in this reply that there appears to be a confusion between the role of oscillations in creating white matter and other functions of oscillations in communicating between neural area...

Background: The core clinical symptoms of addiction include an enhanced incentive for drug taking (craving), impaired self-control (impulsivity and compulsivity), emotional dysregulation (negative mood) and increased stress reactivity. Symptoms related to impaired self-control involve reduced activity in anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), adjacent p...

Why does training on a task reduce the reaction time for performing it? New research points to changes in white matter pathways as one likely mechanism. These pathways connect remote brain areas involved in performing the task. Genetic variations may be involved in individual differences in the extent of this improvement. If white matter change is...

The executive attention network is important for resolving conflict among responses thus allowing us to control voluntary behavior in the face of competition. We have previously shown that individual differences in the efficiency of performing conflict tasks are related to genetic differences. In this study we examine whether performance by adults...

During the 1980s, the Cognitive Neuropsychology Laboratory at Good Samaritan Hospital, Portland, Oregon, made important strides in the study of brain injury. Created and headed by Oscar Marin and the author, in affiliation with the University of Oregon, the lab brought together students, fellows, and visiting experts in neurology, psychology, psych...

Attention can be improved by repetition of a specific task that involves an attention network (network training), or by exercise or meditation that changes the brain state (state training). We first review the concept of attention networks that link changes in orienting, alerting and executive control to brain networks. Network training through vid...

We discuss the idea that addictions can be treated by changing the mechanisms involved in self-control with or without regard to intention. The core clinical symptoms of addiction include an enhanced incentive for drug taking (craving), impaired self-control (impulsivity and compulsivity), negative mood, and increased stress reactivity. Symptoms re...

Resolving conflict is a pivotal self-control ability for human adaptation and survival. Although some studies reported meditation may affect conflict resolution, the neural mechanisms are poorly understood. We conducted a fully randomized 5 h trial of one form of mindfulness meditation—integrative body-mind training (IBMT) in comparison to a relaxa...

Meditation can be defined as a form of mental training that aims to improve an individual's core psychological capacities, such as attentional and emotional self-regulation. Meditation encompasses a family of complex practices that include mindfulness meditation, mantra meditation, yoga, tai chi and chi gong 1. Of these practices , mindfulness medi...

Asymmetry in frontal electrical activity has been reported to be associated with positive mood. One form of mindfulness meditation, integrative body-mind training (IBMT) improves positive mood and neuroplasticity. The purpose of this study is to determine whether short-term IBMT improves mood and induces frontal asymmetry. This study showed that 5-...

Mindfulness meditation depends heavily on brain areas involved in executive attention. Imaging studies of executive attention reveal a brain network that includes the anterior cingulate, anterior insula, and striatum. This brain network is responsible for the resolution of conflict and is more generally critical to self-regulation. The efficiency o...

Brain networks underlying attention are present even during infancy and are critical for the developing ability of children to control their emotions and thoughts. For adults, individual differences in the efficiency of attentional networks have been related to neuromodulators and to genetic variations. We have examined the development of attention...

Training can induce changes in specific brain networks and changes in brain state. In both cases it has been found that the efficiency of white matter as measured by diffusion tensor imaging is increased, often after only a few hours of training. In this paper we consider a plausible molecular mechanism for how state change produced by meditation m...

Our previous research showed that short term meditation training reduces the time to resolve conflict in the flanker task. Studies also show that resting alpha increases with long term meditation practice. The aim of this study is to determine whether short term meditation training both increases resting alpha activity and reduces the time to resol...

It is nearly 35 years since I gave the 7th Sir Frederick Bartlett lecture at Oxford University. This was published as a paper entitled "Orienting of attention in the quarterly journal". The topic was then primarily in psychology, but now equally often in neuroscience. This paper summarizes the background of the reaction time methods used in the ori...

I answer this question in the spirit of the general Hobson theory which seeks a mechanistic answer to Dream Consciousness. The problem of consciousness involves two aspects for which attention is central: awareness and control. Clearly we are aware in the dream state, but for most people the ability to be in control of the dream content is lost.

Brain networks underlying attention are present even during infancy and are critical for the developing ability of children to control their emotions and thoughts. For adults, individual differences in the efficiency of attentional networks have been related to neuromodulators and to genetic variations. We have examined the development of attention...

Brain training refers to practices that alter the brain in a way that improves cognition, and performance in domains beyond those involved in the training. We argue that brain training includes network training through repetitive practice that exercises specific brain networks and state training, which changes the brain state in a way that influenc...

One form of meditation intervention, the integrative body-mind training (IBMT) has been shown to improve attention, reduce stress and change self-reports of mood. In this paper we examine whether short-term IBMT can improve performance related to creativity and determine the role that mood may play in such improvement. Forty Chinese undergraduates...

Meditation has been shown to improve creativity in some situation. However, little is known about the brain systems underling insight into a problem when the person fails to solve the problem. Here, we examined the neural correlation using Chinese Remote Association Test, as a measure of creativity. We provide a solution following the failure of th...

Prior research has shown that an additional training session immediately after acute stress decreases release of salivary cortisol in a college student group trained with 5-day integrative body-mind training (IBMT) in comparison with a control group given the same amount of relaxation training. However, 5 days of training does not influence the bas...

The use of meditation to improve emotion and attention regulation has a long history in Asia and there are many practitioners in Western countries. Much of the evidence on the effectiveness of meditation is either anecdotal or a comparison of long-term meditators with controls matched in age and health. Recently, it has been possible to establish c...

More than 5 million deaths a year are attributable to tobacco smoking, but attempts to help people either quit or reduce their smoking often fail, perhaps in part because the intention to quit activates brain networks related to craving. We recruited participants interested in general stress reduction and randomly assigned them to meditation traini...

Deficits of attention frequently accompany brain damage. An article in this issue of Neurology®(1) provides evidence that a computerized measure may help the clinician to determine which aspects of attention are affected and suggest some directions for remediation.

Language represents a system in which distinct sensory-specific inputs converge upon a highly overlearned common correspondence. This paper examines the influence of unattended visual and auditory words upon naming latencies. Subjects were asked to name a single auditory or visual target word that occurred at the end of a meaningful aurally present...

Hebb and Vygotsky are two of the most influential figures of psychology in the first half of the twentieth century. They represent cultural and biological approaches to explaining human development, and thus a number of their ideas remain relevant to current psychology and cognitive neuroscience. In this article, we examine similarities and differe...

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Mindfulness neuroscience is an emerging research field that investigates the underlying mechanisms of different mindfulness practices, different stages and different states of practice as well as different effects of practice over the lifespan. Mindfulness neuroscience research integrates theory and methods from eastern contemplative traditions, we...

Mindfulness neuroscience is a new, interdisciplinary field of mindfulness practice and neuroscientific research; it applies neuroimaging techniques, physiological measures and behavioral tests to explore the underlying mechanisms of different types, stages and states of mindfulness practice over the lifespan. Mindfulness-based meditation (MBM) or m...

Although the study of brain development in non-human animals is an old one, recent imaging methods have allowed non-invasive studies of the gray and white matter of the human brain over the lifespan. Classic animal studies show clearly that impoverished environments reduce cortical gray matter in relation to complex environments and cognitive and i...

The dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4) 7-repeat allele has been found to interact with environmental factors such as parenting in children and peer attitudes in adults to influence aspects of behavior such as risk taking. We previously found that in toddlers, lower-quality parenting in combination with the 7-repeat allele of the DRD4 gene was associa...

Using diffusion tensor imaging, several recent studies have shown that training results in changes in white matter efficiency as measured by fractional anisotropy (FA). In our work, we found that a form of mindfulness meditation, integrative body-mind training (IBMT), improved FA in areas surrounding the anterior cingulate cortex after 4-wk trainin...

Although the study of brain states is an old one in neuroscience, there has been growing interest in brain state specification owing to MRI studies tracing brain connectivity at rest. In this review, we summarize recent research on three relatively well-described brain states: the resting, alert, and meditation states. We explore the neural correla...

Here, we update our 1990 Annual Review of Neuroscience article, "The Attention System of the Human Brain." The framework presented in the original article has helped to integrate behavioral, systems, cellular, and molecular approaches to common problems in attention research. Our framework has been both elaborated and expanded in subsequent years....

The term consciousness is an important one in the vernacular of the western literature in many fields. It is no wonder that scientists have assumed that consciousness will be found as a component of the human brain and that we will come to understand its neural basis. However, there is rather little in common between consciousness as the neurologis...

The study of attention is central to psychology. This book presents the science of attention in a larger social context, which includes our ability voluntarily to choose and act upon an object of thought. The volume is based on fifty years of research involving behavioral, imaging, developmental, and genetic methods. It describes three brain networ...

The study of attention has largely been about how to select among the various sensory events but also involves the selection among conflicting actions. Prior to the late 1980s, locating bottlenecks between sensory input and response dominated these studies, a different view was that attentional limits involved the importance of maintaining behavior...

For many reasons, tests of the environment, and particularly of gene-by-environment (G×E) interactions, have been left out of genome-wide association (GWA) estimates of genetic main effects. A tutorial on the current study designs for mapping G×E interactions is provided by Duncan Thomas (Gene–environment-wide association studies: emerging approach...

In adults, most cognitive and emotional self-regulation is carried out by a network of brain regions, including the anterior cingulate, insula, and areas of the basal ganglia, related to executive attention. We propose that during infancy, control systems depend primarily upon a brain network involved in orienting to sensory events that includes ar...

Ergonomics, the use of scientific thinking in the design of products and of working environments, has undergone three major waves of research innovations and applications. The first owed a great deal to Paul Fitts, who was a member of the generation of scientists coming to maturity during World War II. Below I have labeled it with the name Human Pe...

Previous studies have found that short-term integrative body-mind training (IBMT) has positive effects on the brain structure and function in the anterior cingulate cortex. Here, we determined whether 11 h of IBMT alters topological properties of the anterior cingulate cortex in brain functional networks. We applied network analysis to resting-stat...

Research in cognitive neuroscience now considers the state of the brain prior to the task an important aspect of performance. Hypnosis seems to alter the brain state in a way which allows external input to dominate over internal goals. We examine how normal development may illuminate the hypnotic state.

Children show increasing control of emotions and behavior during their early years. Our studies suggest a shift in control from the brain's orienting network in infancy to the executive network by the age of 3-4 years. Our longitudinal study indicates that orienting influences both positive and negative affect, as measured by parent report in infan...

This chapter addresses the role of self-regulation in the development of adolescent-onset drug use. Specifically, we focus on the interface between peer influences, parenting, self-regulation, and drug use. Recent longitudinal analyses suggest that peer clustering into groups supportive of drug use is central to the etiology of adolescent onset and...

(from the chapter) Attention and self-regulation have arisen within two very different research traditions. Attention has been an important topic in experimental psychology during the last century and is currently being studied at many levels in cognitive neuroscience. Self-regulation, most commonly with respect to emotional control, has also been...