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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Aug 1

Nice to see this out! Congratulations!

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Apr 17

Thanks to my co-authors! @sgoldbergphd.bsky.social @paulbloom.bsky.social @auerbachlab.bsky.social

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Apr 17

Future studies could consist of developing better personalization algorithms to improve signals of focus and calm and conduct observational studies to witness the use of devices in the wild.

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Apr 17

My fellow researchers and I are bullish about the possibility of technology making mindfulness more accessible and fun for new people, but bearish about the ability of consumer-grade technology to measure signals with high fidelity. Lab-based studies with fMRI and EEG may perform better.

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Apr 17

Small decreases in stress are observed, but no effects on cognition, mindfulness, brain measures from the devices, and physiology are observed. Placebo effects have not been conclusively controlled for.

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Apr 17

Our findings show that there is so far comparatively little evidence that you can enhance your meditation with devices like MUSE.

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Apr 17

There is a lot of hype out there for devices like MUSE that can show you your real-time brainwaves while you meditate. These devices convert brainwaves into signals of 'calm' or 'focus', and the goal is to modulate them.

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Apr 17

Can neurotech devices help you meditate???
Our meta-analysis analyzing the results of RCTs and randomized studies of neurotechnology assesses that question, published in #JMIR, www.jmir.org/2025/1/e68204

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Feb 21

This research could not have been conducted without the support of my co-authors , as well as NIH funding.

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Feb 21

For the sake of neuromodulation paradigms to enhance attention and facilitate meditation, we may want to focus more on states that are sensitive to actual performance.

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Feb 21

This suggests a dissociation between brain correlates of overt task differences (motivation, arousal) vs brain correlates of attentional focus .

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Feb 21

This supports the possibility of different network configurations during tasks. Interestingly, a set of different states (like a globally connected state) was related to fluctuations within-people during the task itself.

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Feb 21

Then we examined breathing vs rest, as is typical in most studies, but also within-task fluctuations in attention, which is a more novel step. Using dynamic brain state analysis, we uncovered states that were more present during the breath counting , like a state involving the default-mode network.

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Feb 21

We asked seventy adolescents to spend 20 minutes counting their breaths in the MRI scanner (breath counting is an important stabilizing practice in many meditation traditions), and then also imaged them at rest. We collected performance and physiology during the breath counting.

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Feb 21

What happens in the brain during a breathing meditation? I had the chance to tackle this question in a recent fMRI study, published in Cerebral Cortex, shorturl.at/yQJQQ, with @christianwebb.bsky.social, @neuroperson.bsky.social , and others!

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Reposted

Simon Goldberg, PhD @sgoldbergphd.bsky.social · Feb 18

We're hiring a research specialist to help run a set of large-scale randomized trials optimizing a well-being app. We're super excited about this work and hoping to find an equally excited research specialist to join our team and make the magic happen! Details here: jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/researc...

Research Specialist - Madison, Wisconsin, United States

Job Summary: The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Healthy Minds (CHM) is a leader in conducting science - in and out of the lab - on how to nurture emotional well-being in daily life, co...

jobs.wisc.edu

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Jan 16

absolutely- how well does self-reported meditation time function as a continuous variable?

isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Jan 16

thanks for featuring our work! we hope it provides a useful approach for big data approaches to mindfulness!

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Jan 16

@neuroperson.bsky.social !!

isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Jan 16

Thank you to my co-authors for their wonderful support! @sgoldbergphd.bsky.social and others not on this fledgling app!

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Jan 16

This could suggest sensory and self-processing changes underly differences in mindfulness. There were some puzzling findings - including low test-retest reliability and the failure to generalize to both test datasets- that motivate the search for better markers in the future.

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Jan 16

We examined three datasets and specifically looked for multivariate predictive models that generalized across datasets. Interestingly, we found that default-mode network, somatomotor, and visual connectivity negatively predicted mindfulness and generalized to one of the two test datasets.

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Jan 16

Unfortunately, much of the previous work on correlations between self-report mindfulness and brain measures does not replicate. In our study, we conducted the largest neuroimaging study to-date on trait mindfulness to address these concerns.

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isaactreves.bsky.social @isaactreves.bsky.social · Jan 16

Excited to share a new paper in Human Brain Mapping! Mindfulness is associated with better psychological health, and we were curious about its underlying brain mechanisms in the general population.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

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Reposted

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · Dec 3

What brain states do jhana practitioners experience?

Delighted to share our new paper in Network Neuroscience @mitpress.bsky.social entitled:

“Dynamic brain states underlying advanced concentrative absorption meditation: A 7T fMRI intensive case study”

🧠🧘‍♀️🔬

🧵

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