This article reviews the author's program of research on the neural substrates of emotion and affective style and their behavioral and peripheral biological correlates. Two core dimensions along which affect is organized are approach and withdrawal. Some of the key circuitry underlying approach and withdrawal components of emotion is reviewed with an emphasis on the role played by different sectors of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and amygdala. Affective style refers to individual differences in valence-specific features of emotional reactivity and regulation. The different parameters of affective style can be objectively measured using specific laboratory probes. Relations between individual differences in prefrontal and amygdala function and specific components of affective style are illustrated. The final section of the article concludes with a brief discussion of plasticity in the central circuitry of emotion and the possibility that this circuitry can be shaped by training experiences that might potentially promote a more resilient, positive affective style. The implications of this body of work for a broader conception of psychophysiology and for training the next generation of psychophysiologists are considered in the conclusion.
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Zen meditation, a Buddhist practice centered on attentional and postural self-regulation, has been speculated to bring about beneficial long-term effects for the individual, ranging from stress reduction to improvement of cognitive function. In this study, we examined how the regular practice of meditation may affect the normal age-related decline of cerebral gray matter volume and attentional performance observed in healthy individuals. Voxel-based morphometry for MRI anatomical brain images and a computerized sustained attention task were employed in 13 regular practitioners of Zen meditation and 13 matched controls. While control subjects displayed the expected negative correlation of both gray matter volume and attentional performance with age, meditators did not show a significant correlation of either measure with age. The effect of meditation on gray matter volume was most prominent in the putamen, a structure strongly implicated in attentional processing. These findings suggest that the regular practice of meditation may have neuroprotective effects and reduce the cognitive decline associated with normal aging.
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- Practitioner Context,
- Buddhist Contemplation by Applied Subject,
- Zen Buddhism,
- Buddhist Contemplation by Tradition,
- Contemplation by Applied Subject,
- Contemplation by Tradition,
- Neuroscience and Buddhist Contemplation,
- Science and Buddhist Contemplation,
- Neuroscience and Contemplation,
- Science and Contemplation,
- Buddhist Contemplation
OBJECTIVE: The underlying changes in biological processes that are associated with reported changes in mental and physical health in response to meditation have not been systematically explored. We performed a randomized, controlled study on the effects on brain and immune function of a well-known and widely used 8-week clinical training program in mindfulness meditation applied in a work environment with healthy employees.
METHODS: We measured brain electrical activity before and immediately after, and then 4 months after an 8-week training program in mindfulness meditation. Twenty-five subjects were tested in the meditation group. A wait-list control group (N = 16) was tested at the same points in time as the meditators. At the end of the 8-week period, subjects in both groups were vaccinated with influenza vaccine.
RESULTS: We report for the first time significant increases in left-sided anterior activation, a pattern previously associated with positive affect, in the meditators compared with the nonmeditators. We also found significant increases in antibody titers to influenza vaccine among subjects in the meditation compared with those in the wait-list control group. Finally, the magnitude of increase in left-sided activation predicted the magnitude of antibody titer rise to the vaccine.
CONCLUSIONS: These findings demonstrate that a short program in mindfulness meditation produces demonstrable effects on brain and immune function. These findings suggest that meditation may change brain and immune function in positive ways and underscore the need for additional research.
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- Contemplation by Applied Subject,
- Psychiatry and Contemplation,
- Medical Research on Contemplative Practice,
- Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction / Cognitive Therapy,
- Psychotherapy and Contemplation,
- Health Care and Contemplation,
- Neuroscience and Contemplation,
- Physiology and Contemplation,
- Science and Contemplation
The primary taste cortex consists of the insula and operculum. Previous work has indicated that neurons in the primary taste cortex respond solely to sensory input from taste receptors and lingual somatosensory receptors. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show here that expectancy modulates these neural responses in humans. When subjects were led to believe that a highly aversive bitter taste would be less distasteful than it actually was, they reported it to be less aversive than when they had accurate information about the taste and, moreover, the primary taste cortex was less strongly activated. In addition, the activation of the right insula and operculum tracked online ratings of the aversiveness for each taste. Such expectancy-driven modulation of primary sensory cortex may affect perceptions of external events.
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On the basis of a review of the extant literature describing emotion-cognition interactions, the authors propose 4 methodological desiderata for studying how task-irrelevant affect modulates cognition and present data from an experiment satisfying them. Consistent with accounts of the hemispheric asymmetries characterizing withdrawal-related negative affect and visuospatial working memory (WM) in prefrontal and parietal cortices, threat-induced anxiety selectively disrupted accuracy of spatial but not verbal WM performance. Furthermore, individual differences in physiological measures of anxiety statistically mediated the degree of disruption. A second experiment revealed that individuals characterized by high levels of behavioral inhibition exhibited more intense anxiety and relatively worse spatial WM performance in the absence of threat, solidifying the authors' inference that anxiety causally mediates disruption. These observations suggest a revision of extant models of how anxiety sculpts cognition and underscore the utility of the desiderata.
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<p>"Informed by the maxim that you can't study what you can't see, Baer's book provedes the necessary psychometric underpinning to further our understanding of core change processes in mindfulness-based interventions."---Zindel V. Segal, Ph.D., author of The Mindful Way Through Depression"This kind of attention to the reasons why mindfulness-based intervention may be beneficial will help stimulate informative research in the area and also help clinicians provide therapy that enhances these important skills."---Lizabeth Roemer, Ph.D., coauthor of Mindfulness-and Acceptance-Based Behavioral Therapies in Practice"An excellent resource not only for mindfulness researchers and practitioners, but for amyone interested in what leads to mental health and emotional balance."---Cassandra Vieten, Ph.D., director of research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and author of Mindful Motherhood"A fascinating journey to the heart of what actually changes in mindfulness and acceptance-based treatment...Highly recommneded for psychotherapists, health care professionals, and anyone seeking the very latest scientific understanding of psychological change."---Christopher K. Germer, Ph.D., author of The Mindful Path to Self-CompassionHow does mindfulness work? Thousands of therapists utilize mindfulness-based treatments and have witnesed firsthand the effectiveness of these approaches on clients suffering from anxiety, depression, and other common mental health issues. But for many clinicians, the psychological processes and brain functions that explain these changes remain a mystery, and effective methodologies for measuring each client's progress are elusive.In Assessing Mindfulness and Acceptance Processes in Clients, Ruth Baer presents a collection of articles by some of the most respected mindfulness researchers and therapists practicing today. Each contribution assesses the variables that represent potential processes of change, such as mindfulness.acceptance, self-compassion, spirituality, and focus on values, and determines the importance of each of these processes to enhanced psychological functioning and quality of life. Clinicians learn to accurately measure each process in individual clients, an invaluable skill for any practicing therapist. A seminal contribution to the existing professional literature on mindfulnessbased treatments, this book is also an essential resource for any mental health professional seeking to illuminate the processes at work behind any mindfulness and acceptance-based therapy.</p>
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<p>In the past two decades, the familiar experience of attention - the emphasis on a particular mental activity so that it "fills the mind" - has been subjected to much scientific inquiry. David LaBerge now provides a systematic view of the attention process as it occurs in everyday perception, thinking, and action. Drawing from a variety of research methods and findings from cognitive psychology, neurobiology, and computer science, he presents a masterful synthesis of what is understood about attentional processing. LaBerge explores how we are able to restrict the input of extraneous and confusing information, or prepare to process a future stimulus, in order to take effective action. As well as describing the pathways in the cortex presumed to be involved in attentional processing, he examines the hypothesis that two subcortical structures, the superior colliculus and the thalamus, contain circuit mechanisms that embody an algorithm of attention. In addition, he takes us through various ways of posing the problem, from an information-processing description of how attention works to a consideration of some of the cognitive and behavioral consequences of the brain's computations, such as desiring, judging, imaging, and remembering. Attentional Processing is a highly sophisticated integration of contributions from several fields of neuroscience. It brings together the latest efforts to solve the puzzle of attention: how it works, how it is modulated, what its benefits are, and how it is expressed in the brain.</p>
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Thirty-two participants were tested for both resting electroencephalography (EEG) and neuropsychological function. Eight one-minute trials of resting EEG were recorded from 14 channels referenced to linked ears, which was rederived to an average reference. Neuropsychological tasks included Verbal Fluency, the Tower of London, and Corsi's Recurring Blocks. Asymmetries in EEG alpha activity were correlated with performance on these tasks. Similar patterns were obtained for delta and theta bands. Factor analyses of resting EEG asymmetries over particular regions suggested that asymmetries over anterior scalp regions may be partly independent from those over posterior scalp regions. These results support the notions that resting EEG asymmetries are specified by multiple mechanisms along the rostral/caudal plane, and that these asymmetries predict task performance in a manner consistent with lesion and neuroimaging studies.
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<p>Drawing its main source of inspiration from a naturalized interpretation of Husserlian phenomenology, On Becoming Aware: A Pragmatics of Experiencing attempts to examine closely the nature of experience and how we may become aware of our own mental life. The authors also focus on how this project fits into the larger context of cognitive science, psychology, neurosciences, and philosophy. Additional partners in the effort to better understand experience are the contemplative systems of the world's spiritual or wisdom traditions, including particularly that of Buddhism. The book includes three separate glossaries of technical terms in phenomenology, the cognitive sciences, and Tibetan Buddhism. The book On Becoming Aware seeks a disciplined and practical approach to exploring human experience. While much of the book draws its inspiration from the phenomenological theories of Husserl, other approaches to the direct study of experience are also explored in depth. One of these approaches is embodied by the world's spiritual or wisdom or contemplative traditions such as Sufism, Buddhism, the Philokalia tradition, and others. Collectively, these traditions have come upon a variety of their own insights and methods for understanding experience, or, to use words from the phenomenological tradition, has developed its own ways of phenomenological reduction Amongst the various wisdom traditions, the authors focus mainly on Buddhism. The authors give an introduction to Buddhist theory and history, followed by an in-depth discussion of the Buddhist contemplative practices of mindfulness, śamatha, vipaśyanā, tonglen (gtong len), lojong (blo sbyong), dzokchen (rdzogs chen), and mahāmudrā. The authors then relate this discussion to themes from philosophy and phenomenology explored earlier in the book, paricularly Husserl's concept of épochè. (Zach Rowinski 2005-01-17) Publisher's description: This book searches for the sources and means for a disciplined practical approach to exploring human experience. The spirit of this book is pragmatic and relies on a Husserlian phenomenology primarily understood as a method of exploring our experience. The authors do not aim at a neo-Kantian a priori ‘new theory’ of experience but instead they describe a concrete activity: how we examine what we live through, how we become aware of our own mental life. The range of experiences of which we can become aware is vast: all the normal dimensions of human life (perception, motion, memory, imagination, speech, everyday social interactions), cognitive events that can be precisely defined as tasks in laboratory experiments (e.g., a protocol for visual attention), but also manifestations of mental life more fraught with meaning (dreaming, intense emotions, social tensions, altered states of consciousness). The central assertion in this work is that this immanent ability is habitually ignored or at best practiced unsystematically, that is to say, blindly. Exploring human experience amounts to developing and cultivating this basic ability through specific training. Only a hands-on, non-dogmatic approach can lead to progress, and that is what animates this book.</p>
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- Contexts of Contemplation Project,
- Buddhist Contemplation by Applied Subject,
- Contemplation by Applied Subject,
- Contemplation by Tradition,
- Philosophy and Contemplation,
- Philosophy and Buddhist Contemplation,
- Psychology and Buddhist Contemplation,
- Science and Buddhist Contemplation,
- Psychology and Contemplation,
- Science and Contemplation,
- Buddhist Contemplation
Many of us go through our daily lives on autopilot, not fully aware of our conscious experiences. In a discussion moderated by Steve Paulson, executive producer and host of To the Best of Our Knowledge, neuroscientists Richard Davidson and Amishi Jha and clinical mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn explore the role of consciousness in mental and physical health, how we can train our minds to be more flexible and adaptable, and cutting-edge neuroscience findings about the transformation of consciousness through mindfulness and contemplative practice. The following is an edited transcript of the discussion that occurred February 6, 2013, 7:00-8:15 PM, at the New York Academy of Sciences in New York City.
Many of us go through our daily lives on autopilot, not fully aware of our conscious experiences. In a discussion moderated by Steve Paulson, executive producer and host of To the Best of Our Knowledge, neuroscientists Richard Davidson and Amishi Jha and clinical mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn explore the role of consciousness in mental and physical health, how we can train our minds to be more flexible and adaptable, and cutting-edge neuroscience findings about the transformation of consciousness through mindfulness and contemplative practice. The following is an edited transcript of the discussion that occurred February 6, 2013, 7:00-8:15 PM, at the New York Academy of Sciences in New York City.
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BACKGROUND: Studies using electroencephalogram (EEG) measures of activation asymmetry have reported differences in anterior asymmetry between depressed and nondepressed subjects. Several studies have suggested reciprocal relations between measures of anterior and posterior activation asymmetries. We hypothesized that depressed subjects would fail to show the normal activation of posterior right hemisphere regions in response to an appropriate cognitive challenge.
METHODS: EEG activity was recorded from 11 depressed and 19 nondepressed subjects during the performance of psychometrically matched verbal (word finding) and spatial (dot localization) tasks. Band power was extracted from all epochs of artifact-free data and averaged within each condition. Task performance was also assessed.
RESULTS: Depressed subjects showed a specific deficit in the performance of the spatial task, whereas no group differences were evident on verbal performance. In posterior scalp regions, nondepressed controls had a pattern of relative left-sided activation during the verbal task and relative right-sided activation during the spatial task. In contrast, depressed subjects failed to show activation in posterior right hemisphere regions during spatial task performance.
CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that deficits in right posterior functioning underlie the observed impairments in spatial functioning among depressed subjects.
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Neuroscientists should help to develop compelling video games that boost brain function and improve well-being, say Daphne Bavelier and Richard J. Davidson.
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Biological systems are particularly prone to variation, and the authors argue that such variation must be regarded as important data in its own right. The authors describe a method in which individual differences are studied within the framework of a general theory of the population as a whole and illustrate how this method can be used to address three types of issues: the nature of the mechanisms that give rise to a specific ability, such as mental imagery; the role of psychological or biological mediators of environmental challenges, such as the biological bases for differences in dispositional mood; and the existence of processes that have nonadditive effects with behavioral and physiological variables, such as factors that modulate the response to stress and its effects on the immune response.
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The article discusses the psychological notion of mindfulness, which denotes focusing on the present and ignoring unhelpful thoughts, in relation to Christian beliefs. It notes the Buddhist origins of the term in the context of meditation, the relation between mindfulness and the self, and the use of Focused Breathing Awareness (FBA) techniques.
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- Contexts of Contemplation Project,
- Buddhist Contemplation by Applied Subject,
- Contemplation by Applied Subject,
- Contemplation by Tradition,
- Psychology and Buddhist Contemplation,
- Science and Buddhist Contemplation,
- Interreligious Contemplation,
- Psychology and Contemplation,
- Science and Contemplation,
- Christian Contemplation,
- Buddhist Contemplation
We propose that cognition is more than a collection of independent processes operating in a modular cognitive system. Instead, we propose that cognition emerges from dependencies between all of the basic systems in the brain, including goal management, perception, action, memory, reward, affect, and learning. Furthermore, human cognition reflects its social evolution and context, as well as contributions from a developmental process. After presenting these themes, we illustrate their application to the process of anticipation. Specifically, we propose that anticipations occur extensively across domains (i.e., goal management, perception, action, reward, affect, and learning) in coordinated manners. We also propose that anticipation is central to situated action and to social interaction, and that many of its key features reflect the process of development.
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<p>This study investigated the effects of imagery on flexibility and the relations among verbal and non-verbal and spontaneous and adaptive flexibility measures. Finally, the effects of brain damage on flexibility and imagery were investigated. Historical and more recent concepts of the cognitive rigidity flexibility dimension were discussed with special emphasis on the effects of brain damage. Forty female and fourteen male volunteer students were tested with verbal and non-verbal flexibility tests. Measures of spontaneous flexibility were the Word Fluency Test and the Five Point Test and measures of adaptive flexibility were the Stroop Test and a newly introduced concept identification test, assessing imagery and interference concepts. Furthermore, a questionnaire to assess individual imagery styles was employed as well as the vocabulary and block design subtests of the WAIS. The results of brain damaged subjects were compared to a matched control group. Furthermore, z-score profiles were prepared to compare the test patterns between the different patient groups. Four dimensions of cognitive flexibility-rigidity were found in healthy subjects. Furthermore it was found that individual imagery styles had little influence on the performance in flexibility tests. A trend was showing that "habitual verbalizers" had no advantage in solving the tests and had in fact more difficulty with the identification of non-verbal concepts. No significant gender effects were found. Brain damaged patients performed significantly more poorly than normal subjects in all flexibility tests. Several test- and subject variables that effect the performance on flexibility tests were discussed. It was concluded that rigidity-flexibility measures represent different dimensions depending on stimulus mode and type of task. It was further concluded that behavioral rigidity-flexibility is not only the function of test variables, but also of various subject variables namely imagery style, intelligence, age, gender and brain damage. In healthy people, the performance on one test was not found to be predictive for the performance on another flexibility test. On the other hand, in brain damaged subjects rigid behavior seems to extend to a wider range of test performance. Finally, different performance patterns were described for different lesion sites in brain damaged.</p>
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The ability to accurately infer others’ mental states from facial expressions is important for optimal social functioning and is fundamentally impaired in social cognitive disorders such as autism. While pharmacologic interventions have shown promise for enhancing empathic accuracy, little is known about the effects of behavioral interventions on empathic accuracy and related brain activity. This study employed a randomized, controlled and longitudinal design to investigate the effect of a secularized analytical compassion meditation program, cognitive-based compassion training (CBCT), on empathic accuracy. Twenty-one healthy participants received functional MRI scans while completing an empathic accuracy task, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), both prior to and after completion of either CBCT or a health discussion control group. Upon completion of the study interventions, participants randomized to CBCT and were significantly more likely than control subjects to have increased scores on the RMET and increased neural activity in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC). Moreover, changes in dmPFC and IFG activity from baseline to the post-intervention assessment were associated with changes in empathic accuracy. These findings suggest that CBCT may hold promise as a behavioral intervention for enhancing empathic accuracy and the neurobiology supporting it.
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<p>This article draws on research in neuroscience, cognitive science, developmental psychology, and education, as well as scholarship from contemplative traditions concerning the cultivation of positive development, to highlight a set of mental skills and socioemotional dispositions that are central to the aims of education in the 21st century. These include self-regulatory skills associated with emotion and attention, self-representations, and prosocial dispositions such as empathy and compassion. It should be possible to strengthen these positive qualities and dispositions through systematic contemplative practices, which induce plastic changes in brain function and structure, supporting prosocial behavior and academic success in young people. These putative beneficial consequences call for focused programmatic research to better characterize which forms and frequencies of practice are most effective for which types of children and adolescents. Results from such research may help refine training programs to maximize their effectiveness at different ages and to document the changes in neural function and structure that might be induced.</p>
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This article draws on research in neuroscience, cognitive science, developmental psychology, and education, as well as scholarship from contemplative traditions concerning the cultivation of positive development, to highlight a set of mental skills and socioemotional dispositions that are central to the aims of education in the 21st century. These include self-regulatory skills associated with emotion and attention, self-representations, and prosocial dispositions such as empathy and compassion. It should be possible to strengthen these positive qualities and dispositions through systematic contemplative practices, which induce plastic changes in brain function and structure, supporting prosocial behavior and academic success in young people. These putative beneficial consequences call for focused programmatic research to better characterize which forms and frequencies of practice are most effective for which types of children and adolescents. Results from such research may help refine training programs to maximize their effectiveness at different ages and to document the changes in neural function and structure that might be induced.
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