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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
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January 2000 - present
January 2000 - present
Publications
Publications (99)
Meditation is a family of ancient and contemporary contemplative mind-body practices that can modulate psychological processes, awareness, and mental states. Over the last 40 years, clinical science has manualised meditation practices and designed various meditation interventions (MIs), that have shown therapeutic efficacy for disorders including d...
Objectives
Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been shown to be beneficial for young adults with adverse childhood experiences (ACE), but the temporal course of the therapeutic effects is still not well understood. This study aimed to investigate MBI-induced weekly changes and long-term effects in trait mindfulness and psychological symptom...
Detecting and responding to threat engages several neural nodes including the amygdala, hippocampus, insular cortex, and medial prefrontal cortices. Recent propositions call for the integration of more distributed neural nodes that process sensory and cognitive facets related to threat. Integrative, sensitive, and reproducible distributed neural de...
Background
Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) has detrimental impacts on neural development, especially hippocampal morphometry. Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI) has been shown to induce adaptive hippocampal changes especially at the subiculum. The present study aims to investigate the effects of MBI on subiculum volumes among ACE survivors, a...
The practice of silence is integral to some meditation traditions. Research is lacking on how silence practice affects brain connectivity. We hypothesized that silent, retreat-based meditation practice would reduce the connection between the language network from core cognitive networks such as the dorsal attention network (DAN) and default mode ne...
Background
Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) has been shown to have detrimental impact on amygdala structure. Prior research found that adaptive psychological changes after Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI) were associated with amygdala volumetric changes. The present study aims to further investigate whether such effects also occur among ACE...
Background:
The ability to extinguish a maladaptive conditioned fear response is crucial for healthy emotional processing and resiliency to aversive experiences. Therefore, enhancing fear extinction learning has immense potential emotional and health benefits. Mindfulness training enhances both fear conditioning and recall of extinguished fear; ho...
Background:
Biological markers for anxiety disorders may further understanding of disorder pathophysiology and suggest potential targeted treatments. The fear-potentiated startle (FPS, a measure of startle to predictable threat) and anxiety-potentiated startle (APS, startle to unpredictable threat) laboratory paradigm has been used to detect physi...
Yoga is increasingly recognized for both its physical and mental health benefits, yet its central mechanisms of action remain unclear. In addition to benefits generally associated with physical exercise, yoga may also cultivate interoception, the sense of the body's internal state, the ability to notice and respond adaptively to physiological cues....
Findings pertaining to sex differences in the acquisition and extinction of threat conditioning, a paradigm widely used to study emotional homeostasis, remain inconsistent, particularly in humans. This inconsistency is likely due to multiple factors, one of which is sample size. Here, we pooled functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and skin...
Mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) are increasingly utilized to improve mental health. Interest in the putative effects of MBPs on cognitive function is also growing. This is the first meta-analysis of objective cognitive outcomes across multiple domains from randomized MBP studies of adults. Seven databases were systematically searched to January 2...
Neural plasticity in subareas of the rodent amygdala is widely known to be essential for Pavlovian threat conditioning and safety learning. However, less consistent results have been observed in human neuroimaging studies. Here, we identify and test three important factors that may contribute to these discrepancies: the temporal profile of amygdala...
Top-down processes such as expectations play a key role in pain perception. In specific contexts, inferred threat of impending pain can affect perceived pain more than the noxious intensity. This biasing effect of top-down threats can affect some individuals more strongly than others due to differences in fear of pain. The specific characteristics...
Noxious events that can cause physical damage to the body are perceived as threats. In the brainstem, the periaqueductal gray (PAG) ensures survival by generating an appropriate response to these threats. Hence, the experience of pain is coupled with threat signaling and interfaces in the dl/l and vlPAG columns. In this study, we triangulate the fu...
Self-related processes (SRPs) have been theorized as key mechanisms of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs), but the evidence supporting these theories is currently unclear. This evidence map introduces a comprehensive framework for different types of SRPs, and how they are theorized to function as mechanisms of MBIs (target identification). The...
Internalized weight stigma (IWS) is independently associated with less intuitive eating (i.e., eating based on endogenous hunger/satiety cues) and higher Body Mass Index (BMI), and intuitive eating training is commonly conceptualized as protective against the effects of IWS on poor behavioral health. The 3-way relationship between IWS, intuitive ea...
Maintaining optimal cognitive functioning throughout the lifespan is a public health priority. Evaluation of cognitive outcomes following interventions to promote and preserve brain structure and function in older adults, and associated neural mechanisms, are therefore of critical importance. In this randomized controlled trial, we examined the beh...
Background
and Purpose: Stress contributes to dietary patterns that impede health. Yoga is an integrative stress management approach associated with improved dietary patterns in burgeoning research. Yet, no research has examined change in dietary patterns, body mass index (BMI), and stress during a yoga intervention among stressed adults with poor...
Jane Loevinger’s theory of adult development, termed ego development (1966) and more recently maturity development, provides a useful framework for understanding the development of the self throughout the lifespan. However, few studies have investigated its neural correlates. In the present study, we use structural and functional magnetic resonance...
Objectives
Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been widely implemented to improve self-regulation behaviors, often by targeting emotion-related constructs to facilitate change. Yet the degree to which MBIs engage specific measures of emotion-related constructs has not been systematically examined.
Methods
Using advanced meta-analytic techn...
Meditation experience has previously been shown to improve performance on behavioral assessments of attention, but the neural bases of this improvement are unknown. Two prominent, strongly competing networks exist in the human cortex: a dorsal attention network, that is activated during focused attention, and a default mode network, that is suppres...
The amygdala morphometry is highly sensitive to stress and is implicated in various psychopathologies that are common among individuals with childhood maltreatment histories. This pilot study investigated bilateral amygdala volumetric changes among 15 young adults with childhood maltreatment histories undergoing an eight-week mindfulness interventi...
Purpose
Internalized weight stigma (IWS) is common in the United States of America across body weight categories, and is implicated in the development of distress and unhealthy eating behaviors (e.g. overeating, disordered eating) that can foster poor cardiometabolic health. While emerging intervention research shows early promise in reducing IWS,...
Background
The primary focus of mindfulness‐based program (MBP) research to date has been on mental health. More recently, attention has turned to putative effects on cognition. An evidence synthesis is required to answer the key question of ‘Do MBPs confer cognitive benefit, and if so, for whom?’ A particularly crucial distinction is whether benef...
Initiating and maintaining behavior change is key to the prevention and treatment of most preventable chronic medical and psychiatric illnesses. The cultivation of mindfulness, involving acceptance and nonjudgment of present-moment experience, often results in transformative health behavior change. Neural systems involved in motivation and learning...
Yoga interventions can reduce stress, but the mechanisms underlying that stress reduction remain largely unidentified. Understanding how yoga works is essential to optimizing interventions. The present study tested five potential psychosocial mechanisms (increased mindfulness, interoceptive awareness, spiritual well‐being, self‐compassion, and self...
Introduction
Mindfulness meditation has successfully been applied to cultivate skills in self‐regulation of emotion, as it employs the unbiased present moment awareness of experience. This heightened attention to and awareness of sensory experience has been postulated to create an optimal therapeutic exposure condition and thereby improve extinctio...
Childhood maltreatment has long lasting impacts on neural development, particularly the hippocampus, an important structure for learning and memory. The present study aimed to assess the effects of a mindfulness-based intervention on hippocampal morphometry and episodic memory in this population. We administered MRI, psychological questionnaires an...
Objective: Tai chi (TC), a contemplative practice combining slow movements and deep breathing, has been shown to be clinically effective in alleviating depressive symptoms. Feelings of fatigue or low vitality often accompany major depressive disorder (MDD) though they are commonly overlooked and not well understood neurologically. By using resting...
Objectives
Individuals with a childhood maltreatment history tend to have various psychological symptoms and impaired social functioning. This study aimed to investigate the related therapeutic effects of a mindfulness-based intervention in this population.Methods
We analyzed self-report questionnaire scores of the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale...
Adherence determines the success and benefits of mental training (e.g., meditation) programs. It is unclear why some participants engage more actively in programs for mental training than others. Understanding neurobiological factors that predict adherence is necessary for understanding elements of learning and to inform better designs for new lear...
Background
Individuals who were maltreated during childhood are faced with increased risks for developing various psychological symptoms that are particularly resistant to traditional treatments. This pilot study investigated the effects of a mindfulness based behavioral intervention for young adults with a childhood maltreatment history.
Methods...
In light of a growing interest in contemplative practices such as meditation, the emerging field of contemplative science has been challenged to describe and objectively measure how these practices affect health and well-being. While “mindfulness” itself has been proposed as a measurable outcome of contemplative practices, this concept encompasses...
The article Reduced interference in working memory following mindfulness training is associated with increases in hippocampal volume, written by Jonathan Greenberg, Victoria L. Romero, Seth Elkin-Frankston, Matthew A. Bezdek, Eric H. Schumacher, and Sara W. Lazar.
Background:
The role of hippocampus in context-dependent recall of extinction is well recognized. However, little is known about how intervention-induced changes in hippocampal networks relate to improvements in extinction learning. In this study, we hypothesized that mindfulness training creates an optimal exposure condition by heightening attent...
Proactive interference occurs when previously relevant information interferes with retaining newer material. Overcoming proactive interference has been linked to the hippocampus and deemed critical for cognitive functioning. However, little is known about whether and how this ability can be improved or about the neural correlates of such improvemen...
Mindfulness meditation has been primarily studied within the context of individual's psychological well being and/or in relation to it's potential to enhance cognitive skills such as attention and working memory. However, in Buddhism, mindfulness is used as a tool to cultivate wholesome actions, and as a means to promote virtuous, prosocial qualiti...
Mindfulness, traditionally used in eastern practices, has received considerable public interest in recent decades. Consistent with this interest, the science, practice, and implementation of mindfulness interventions to treat psychiatric disorders have dramatically increased in recent years. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) was the first...
One potential pathway by which mindfulness-based meditation improves health outcomes is through changes in cognitive functioning. Here, we summarize and comment upon three systematic reviews conducted over the last seven years that have had the goal of identifying the impact of mindfulness on cognitive outcomes. In our analysis, we identified a num...
Mindfulness meditation has been primarily studied within the context of individual’s psychological well being and/or in relation to it’s potential to enhance cognitive skills such as attention and working memory. However, in Buddhism, mindfulness is used as a tool to cultivate wholesome actions, and as a means to promote virtuous, prosocial qualiti...
One potential pathway by which mindfulness-based meditation improves health outcomes is through changes in cognitive functioning. A systematic review of randomized controlled trials of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) was conducted with a focus on assessing the state of the evidence for effects on cognitive processes and associated assays. He...
Major depressive disorder is a prevalent psychiatric condition that affects cognitive functioning. Cognitive impairments associated with depression impact the treatment course and effectiveness, creating a need to target this aspect of depression directly. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) has been shown to be effective at preventing depre...
Home practice is a major component of mind-body programs, yet little is known about how to optimize the amount of prescribed home practice in order to achieve an effective “dose” of practice while minimizing participant burden. This study tested how varying the amount of home practice in a mind-body program impacts compliance and stress reduction,...
Depression is associated with high levels of mind-wandering and low levels of self-compassion. However, little is known about whether and how these two factors interact with one another to influence depressive symptoms. The current study examined the interaction between mind-wandering, self-compassion, and depressive symptoms in a depressed sample...
Objective:
We investigated common and dissociable neural and psychological correlates of two widely used meditation-based stress reduction programs.
Methods:
Participants were randomized to the Relaxation Response (RR; n = 18; 56% female) or the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR; n = 16; 56% female) programs. Both programs use a "bodyscan...
During the past two decades, mindfulness meditation has gone from being a fringe topic of scientific investigation to being an occasional replacement for psychotherapy, tool of corporate well-being, widely implemented educational practice, and “key to building more resilient soldiers.” Yet the mindfulness movement and empirical evidence supporting...
In response to our article, Davidson and Dahl offer commentary and advice regarding additional topics crucial to a comprehensive prescriptive agenda for future research on mindfulness and meditation. Their commentary raises further challenges and provides an important complement to our article. More consideration of these issues is especially welco...
Objective:
Chronic pain is a disabling illness, often comorbid with depression. We performed a randomized controlled pilot study on mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) targeting depression in a chronic pain population.
Method:
Participants with chronic pain lasting ≥ 3 months; DSM-IV major depressive disorder (MDD), dysthymic disorder, or...
An impaired ability to suppress currently irrelevant mental-sets is a key cognitive deficit in depression. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) was specifically designed to help depressed individuals avoid getting caught in such irrelevant mental-sets. In the current study, a group assigned to MBCT plus treatment-as-usual (n?=?22) exhibited s...
Body awareness has been proposed as one of the major mechanisms of mindfulness interventions, and it has been shown that chronic pain and depression are associated with decreased levels of body awareness. We investigated the effect of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) on body awareness in patients with chronic pain and comorbid active depr...
Mindfulness has been suggested to impact emotional learning, but research on these processes is scarce. The classical fear conditioning/extinction/extinction retention paradigm is a well-known method for assessing emotional learning. The present study tested the impact of mindfulness training on fear conditioning and extinction memory and further i...
Mindfulness research activity is surging within organizational science. Emerging evidence across multiple fields suggests that mindfulness is fundamentally connected to many aspects of workplace functioning, but this knowledge base has not been systematically integrated to date. This review coalesces the burgeoning body of mindfulness scholarship i...
In light of a growing interest in contemplative practices such as meditation, the emerging field of contemplative science has been challenged to describe and objectively measure how these practices affect health and well-being. While “mindfulness” itself has been proposed as a measurable outcome of contemplative practices, this concept encompasses...
There has been a growing interest in understanding how contemplative practices affect brain functional organization. However, most studies have restricted their exploration to predefined networks. Furthermore, scientific comparisons of different contemplative traditions are largely lacking. Here we explored differences in whole brain resting state...
Numerous studies have documented the normal age-related decline of neural structure, function, and cognitive performance. Preliminary evidence suggests that meditation may reduce decline in specific cognitive domains and in brain structure. Here we extended this research by investigating the relation between age and fluid intelligence and resting s...
With a rapidly aging society it becomes increasingly important to counter normal age-related decline in cognitive functioning. Growing evidence suggests that cognitive training programs may have the potential to counteract this decline. On the basis of a growing body of research that shows that meditation has positive effects on cognition in younge...
Individuals can improve their levels of psychological well-being (PWB) through utilization of psychological interventions, including the practice of mindfulness meditation, which is defined as the non-judgmental awareness of experiences in the present moment. We recently reported that an 8-week-mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course lead...
In light of a growing interest in contemplative practices such as meditation, the emerging field of
contemplative science has been challenged to describe and objectively measure how these
practices affect health and well-being. While “mindfulness” itself has been proposed as a
measurable outcome of contemplative practices, this concept encompasses...
Mindfulness training aims to impact emotion regulation. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms can be successfully addressed through mindfulness-based interventions. This preliminary study is the first to investigate neural mechanisms of symptom improvements in GAD following mindfulness training. Furthermore, we compared brain activation betwe...
Mindfulness training aims to impact emotion regulation. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms can be successfully addressed through mindfulness-based interventions. This preliminary study is the first to investi-gate neural mechanisms of symptom improvements in GAD following mindfulness training. Furthermore, we compared brain activation betw...
Using a common set of mindfulness exercises, mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) and mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT) have been shown to reduce distress in chronic pain and decrease risk of depression relapse. These standardized mindfulness (ST-Mindfulness) practices predominantly require attending to breath and body sensations. Her...
2012): Effects of a yoga-based intervention for young adults on quality of life and perceived stress: The potential mediating roles of mindfulness and self-compassion, The Journal of Positive Psychology: Dedicated to furthering research and promoting good practice, 7:3, 165-175 This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purp...
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a condition characterized by worry and physiological arousal symptoms that causes significant disabilities in patients' lives. In order to improve psychotherapeutic interventions, a careful characterization of the deficiencies of this population as well as factors that ameliorate disability is crucial. Variable...
Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is largely mediated by the autonomic nervous system through its modulating influence on the heart beats. We propose a robust algorithm for quantifying instantaneous RSA as applied to heart beat intervals and respiratory recordings under dynamic breathing patterns. The blood volume pressure-derived heart beat serie...
Pain can be modulated by several cognitive techniques, typically involving increased cognitive control and decreased sensory
processing. Recently, it has been demonstrated that pain can also be attenuated by mindfulness. Here, we investigate the underlying
brain mechanisms by which the state of mindfulness reduces pain. Mindfulness practitioners an...
Cultivation of mindfulness, the nonjudgmental awareness of experiences in the present moment, produces beneficial effects on well-being and ameliorates psychiatric and stress-related symptoms. Mindfulness meditation has therefore increasingly been incorporated into psychotherapeutic interventions. Although the number of publications in the field ha...
