The DOI matches its Crossref record; 34 of the 35 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Meditation leads to reduced default mode network activity beyond an active task
Open accessAbstract
Meditation has been associated with relatively reduced activity in the default mode network, a brain network implicated in self-related thinking and mind wandering. However, previous imaging studies have typically compared meditation to rest, despite other studies having reported differences in brain activation patterns between meditators and controls at rest. Moreover, rest is associated with a range of brain activation patterns across individuals that has only recently begun to be better characterized. Therefore, in this study we compared meditation to another active cognitive task, both to replicate the findings that meditation is associated with relatively reduced default mode network activity and to extend these findings by testing whether default mode activity was reduced during meditation, beyond the typical reductions observed during effortful tasks. In addition, prior studies had used small groups, whereas in the present study we tested these hypotheses in a larger group. The results indicated that meditation is associated with reduced activations in the default mode network, relative to an active task, for meditators as compared to controls. Regions of the default mode network showing a Group × Task interaction included the posterior cingulate/precuneus and anterior cingulate cortex. These findings replicate and extend prior work indicating that the suppression of default mode processing may represent a central neural process in long-term meditation, and they suggest that meditation leads to relatively reduced default mode processing beyond that observed during another active cognitive task.
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“Neuroimaging studies revealed reduced default mode network (DMN) activation and enhanced DMN-central executive network (CEN) connectivity in experienced meditators, suggesting that CEN negatively regulates the DMN (Bauer et al., 2019; Brewer et al., 2011; Garrison et al., 2015).”
From Online Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for People with Parkinson’s Disease and Their Caregivers: a Pilot Study (2022) · cites this paper as Garrison et al., 2015
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In the citing paper
“According to the findings, functional connectivity in the DMN is negatively correlated with that of the salience network (Doll et al., 2015), other brain neural networks (Josipovic et al., 2011), and the mindfulness scores of mindful breathing practitioners (Garrison et al., 2015).”
From Frontal Electroencephalography Asymmetry and Desynchronized Functional Connectivity Associated with Long-Term and Short-Term Breathing Training (2026) · cites this paper as Garrison et al., 2015
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn the citing paper
“Furthermore, meditation also attenuates activity of the default mode network (DMN),14 with dysfunction of the DMN subsystem in the anterior (medial prefrontal cortex) and posterior (cingulate cortex) following a larger number of long-term meditations.15 16”
From Biological mechanism study of meditation and its application in mental disorders (2020) · cites this paper as [15]
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Citations
Cites
A default mode of brain function
Raichle, M. E., MacLeod, A. M., Snyder, A. Z., Powers, W. J., Gusnard, D. A., & Shulman, G. L. (2001) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.98.2.676 · Cited by 12,190
The Brain's Default Network: Anatomy, Function, and Relevance to Disease
Buckner, R. L., Andrews‐Hanna, J. R., & Schacter, D. L. (2008) · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1196/annals.1440.011 · Cited by 9,761
The human brain is intrinsically organized into dynamic, anticorrelated functional networks
Fox, M. D., Snyder, A. Z., Vincent, J. L., Corbetta, M., Van Essen, D. C., & Raichle, M. E. (2005) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0504136102 · Cited by 8,553 · cited 2×
“The DMN is further characterized by decreased activity during effortful, goal-directed tasks (Fox et al., 2005; Greicius, Krasnow, Reiss, & Menon, 2003).”
Ashburner, J., & Friston, K. J. (2005) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.02.018 · Cited by 7,507 · cited 1×
“A generative model of tissue classification, bias correction, and segmentation (Ashburner & Friston, 2005) was used to estimate spatial normalization parameters to Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) space.”
Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition.
Bishop, S. R., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., Anderson, N. D., Carmody, J., Segal, Z. V., Abbey, S., Speca, M., Velting, D., et al. (2004) · Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice · doi:10.1093/clipsy.bph077 · Cited by 7,234 · cited 2×
“Meditation involves maintaining attention on immediate experience and away from distractions such as self-referential thinking andmindwandering (Bishop et al., 2004).”
BackgroundFunctional connectivity in the resting brain: a network analysis of the default mode hypothesis
Greicius, M. D., Krasnow, B., Reiss, A. L., & Menon, V. (2003) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0135058100 · Cited by 6,358
Searching for a baseline: Functional imaging and the resting human brain
Gusnard, D. A., & Raichle, M. E. (2001) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/35094500 · Cited by 3,371 · cited 1×
“The choice of control condition is a critical problem in cognitive neuroimaging studies and is fundamental for interpreting changes in brain activation patterns (Gusnard & Raichle, 2001; Marx et al., 2004).”
BackgroundWandering minds: the default network and stimulus-independent thought
Mason, M. F., Norton, M. I., Van Horn, J. D., Wegner, D. M., Grafton, S. T., & Macrae, C. N. (2007) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1131295 · Cited by 2,792 · cited 2×
“Likewise, mindwandering has been associated with activity in the DMN (Mason et al., 2007), and reduced DMN activity during meditation has been associated with improved sustained attention outside of the scanner (Pagnoni, 2012).”
BackgroundFunctional-anatomic fractionation of the brain’s default network
Andrews-Hanna, J. R., Reidler, J. S., Sepulcre, J., Poulin, R., & Buckner, R. L. (2010) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2010.02.005 · Cited by 2,767
Effects of mindfulness on psychological health: A review of empirical studies
Keng, S.-L., Smoski, M. J., & Robins, C. J. (2011) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2011.04.006 · Cited by 2,687
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Boyd, J. E., Lanius, R. A., & McKinnon, M. C. (2018) · Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience · doi:10.1503/jpn.170021 · Cited by 407
Psychedelics, meditation, and self-consciousness
Millière, R., Carhart-Harris, R. L., Roseman, L., Trautwein, F.-M., & Berkovich-Ohana, A. (2018) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01475 · Cited by 390
“While DMN deactivation is not specific to mindfulness meditation, it has been found to be more pronounced during meditation than during other cognitive tasks (Garrison et al., 2015).”
BackgroundReview of the Neural Oscillations Underlying Meditation
Lee, D. J., Kulubya, E. S., Goldin, P. R., Goodarzi, A., & Girgis, F. (2018) · Frontiers in Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnins.2018.00178 · Cited by 266
“This DMN is active during passive awake rest or involuntary activities and includes the ventral medial PFC, medial temporal lobe, precuneus, and posterior cingulate gyrus (Brewer et al., 2011; Garrison et al., 2015; Simon and Engstrom, 2015).”
BackgroundKing, A. P., Block, S. R., Sripada, R. K., Rauch, S., Giardino, N., Favorite, T., Angstadt, M., Kessler, D., Welsh, R., & Liberzon, I. (2016) · Depression and Anxiety · doi:10.1002/da.22481 · Cited by 225
“[31] Some cross-sectional studies report mindfulness training or self-reported mindfulness scores are associated with relatively decreased within DMN connectivity in meditators,[30] or that self-report mindfulness is associated with increased DMN and SN anticorrelation,[28] while others report relative increases in rs…”
BackgroundSezer, I., Pizzagalli, D. A., & Sacchet, M. D. (2022) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104583 · Cited by 214
“Mindfulness meditation training has been shown to down-regulate activity of the DMN (Brewer et al., 2011; Garrison et al., 2015).”
Background
Metadata
- Authors
- Garrison, K. A., Zeffiro, T. A., Scheinost, D., Constable, R. T., & Brewer, J. A.
- Affiliations
- Yale University (US)
- University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (US)
- Corresponding author
- Brewer, Judson A.
- Venue
- Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience
- Published
- 2015-04-23
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 712-720
- ISSN
- 1530-7026 (ISSN-L)
- 1531-135X
- PMC
- PMC4529365
- OpenAlex
- W2093668364
- Cited by
- 295
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 30 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 47 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 28 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 5
- FWCI
- 14.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network (American Medical Association) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
- American Heart Association (14CRP18200010)
- Yale University
- National Institutes of Health (14CRP18200010)
- National Institute on Drug Abuse (K12 DA00167, K12DA000167, T32DA022975)
- NIH Clinical Center
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (R01AT007922)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Mind wandering and attention
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Keywords
- meditation, default mode network, resting-state brain activity, posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus, anterior cingulate cortex, mind wandering
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain, Brain Mapping, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Middle Aged, Neural Pathways, Neuropsychological Tests, Rest, Meditation
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