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The Mind of the Meditator
Scientific American Just put out a decent summary of the current neuroscience research on meditation written by friends, Matthieu Ricard, Antoine Lutz, and Richie Davidson. I enjoyed reading the article and thought I’d share it here with some commentary. The article uses the same distinctions in meditation practice we outlined in our S-ART paper – That is Focused Attention, Open Monitoring (or Mindfulness), and Loving Kindness or Compassion (or ethical enhancement practices).
Essentially, they describe the act of meditating during Focused Attention similarly to the model below – A practitioner starts with the intention, orients attention and engages on object (Breath) – the mind becomes distracted and enters the mind-wandering default mode network – it realizes there is distraction (through decentering) and activates a salience network. Reorientation of awarenesss than involves dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior inferior parietal lobe. I would further argue that the larger frontoparietal control network (including nodes of the salience network and lateral frontopolar cortex and even the lateral cerebellum) all contribute to the decentering, monitoring, and reorientation process. the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex concurrently helps with response inhibition.
Interestingly, the article also points out some of the morphological changes noted in a recent meta-analyses done by Kiran Fox HERE. The study found the frontopolar cortex and anterior insula were 2 brain regions with neuroplastic changes most often found in such studies of meditators.
Contemplative Practices and Mental Training: Prospects for American Education
The Mind and Life Education Research Group met regularly for 4 years (2007-2011) to create a research agenda for contemplative education. A scholarly white paper manifested as a result drawing 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.
The paper can be found Here [Link]
my personal copy [MLERN_2012]
Related articles
Contemplative Science & Mindfulness Meditation Centers Across the World
The following list includes Education, Dharma, and research-related centers across the world interested in mindfulness and meditation
Contemplative & Mindfulness-related Resources (Centers and websites)
1. Mind and Life Institute [Link]
2. UMASS – center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society (JKZ) [Link]
3. UK Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy – [Link]
2. Mindful.org – A Shambhala Sun publication [Link]
3. Mindfulness.org.au – [Link]
4. Mind Body Awareness Project [Link]
5. Mindful Research Guide (David Black) – [Link]
6. The Mindfulness Center [Link]
7. Mindsight Institute [Link]
8. Shinzen Young – Meditation in Action [Link]
9. Upaya Zen Center (Roshi Joan Halifax) [Link]
10. Metro-Area Research Group on Awareness & Meditation (MARGAM) [Link]
Mindfulness-related Research Centers
1. Harvard Medical School –
a. Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory (BWH) – [Link]
b. Benson Henry Institute for Mind-body Medicine – [Link]
c. Lazar lab (MGH) – [Link]
d. Neuroscience of Meditation, Healing, and Sense of Touch (Kerr lab) – [Link]
e. Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders (Hoge Lab) – [Link]
f. Khalsa Lab on Yoga Research [Link]
2. Roemer Research Team at UMASS – Boston [Link]
3. Emotion, Brain & Behavior lab at Tufts University [Link]
4. Center for Investigating Healthy Minds – University of Wisconsin (Richie Davidson lab) – [Link]; Lab for Affective Neuroscience[Link]
5. Stanford cCARE – Center for Compassion & Altruism Research & Education [Link]
6. Stanford Center on Stress and Health [Link]
7. University of California, Davis Center for Mind and Brain – Saron Lab (Shamatha project) [Link]
8. Britton lab (Brown) of Contemplative, Clinical, and Affective Neuroscience [Link]
9. University of California, San Francisco Osher Center for Integrative Medicine [Link] and Department of Psychiatry [link]
9. Kent State University – Psychopathology and Emotion Regulation (Fresco) lab [Link]
10. The Jha Lab – University of Miami – Exploring the Stability and Mutability of Attention & Working Memory [Link]
11. Penn Program for Mindfulness [Link]
12. University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill – Integrative Medicine [Link]
13. University of California – San Diego Center for Mindfulness [Link]
14. University of Toronto – dept. of psychiatry (Zindel Segal) – [Link]
15. Atlanta Mindfulness Institute [Link]
16. Institute for Mindfulness-Based Approaches (Germany) [Link]
17. Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies [Link]
18. Seattle Pacific University Lustyk Lab [link]
19. University of California, Los Angeles Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) [link] & Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology [link]
20. University of California, San Diego Center for Mindfulness [link]
Mindfulness-related Clinical-based Research Centers
1. Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy – Boston [link]
2. Society for Clinical Mindfulness and Meditation [link]
3. Duke Integrative Medicine [link]
4. Center for Mindfulness and Psychotherapy – LA [link]
5. Center for Therapeutic Neuroscience – Yale (Jud Brewer) [Link]
6. Center for Mindful Eating [link]
7. National Center for Complimentary & Alternative Medicine [link]
7. Mindfulness Practice Center at the University of Missouri [link]
8. Mindfulness Practice Center at the University of Vermont [link]
9. Mindfulness Training Institute of Washington [link]
10. Mindfulness-based Relapse Prevention (Univ. of Washington) [Link]
11. eMindful Evidence-Based Mind Body Wellness [Link]
12. Mindful Living Center [Link]
Mindfulness-related Education Centers
1. Association for Mindfulness in Education [Link]
2. EDUTOPIA – The George Lucas Educational Foundation [Link]
3. SMART – Stress Management and Relaxation Techniques in Education [Link]
4. CASEL – Collaborative for Social and Emotional Learning [Link]
5. Brown University Contemplative Sciences Initiative [Link]
6. Center for Contemplative Mind in Society [Link]
7. Garrison Institute – CARE – Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education [Link]
8. Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education [Link]
9. Lifespan Learning Institute [Link]
Mindfulness-related Dharma Centers
1. Insight Meditation Society (IMS), Barre, MA [link]
2. Spirit Rock Meditation Center [Link]
3. Cambridge Insight Meditation Society [Link]
4. Boston Rigpa Meditation Center [Link]
5. Still Quiet Place [link]
Contemplative Mind in Life 