Speaker Series: Catching the Wandering Mind: Using Meditation to Investigate Neural Shifts between Attention and Distraction

We've all had the experience of our minds "wandering off" when we're supposed to be paying attention. Becoming aware of a distracted state and bringing our minds back to the task at hand is one of the fundamental ways we modulate our attention. Can studying meditation help us begin to understand the brain networks underlying this process? This talk will describe a basic model of naturalistic cognitive fluctuations between mind wandering and attentional states derived from the practice of focused attention meditation. This model proposes four intervals in a cognitive cycle: mind wandering, awareness of mind wandering, shifting of attention, and sustained attention. Using fMRI, a paradigm was developed to leverage subjective reports of awareness of mind wandering during focused attention meditation, using these reports to drive data analysis. Results revealed activity in brain regions associated with the default mode during mind wandering, and in salience network regions during awareness of mind wandering. Elements of the executive network were active during shifting and sustained attention. Further, participants with more meditation experience exhibited increased resting state functional connectivity within attentional networks, as well as between attentional regions and medial frontal regions. These neural relationships may be involved in the development of cognitive skills, such as maintaining attention and disengaging from distraction, that are often reported with meditation practice. These findings will be placed in the context of our larger understanding of identified brain networks, and future directions and applications will be discussed.

About: Wendy Hasenkamp received her PhD from Emory University in 2005. Her early work focused on molecular, psychophysiological and neurocognitive abnormalities in schizophrenia; more recently she has studied meditation using neuroimaging techniques. As a neuroscientist and a contemplative practitioner, she is most interested in understanding how subjective experience is represented in the brain, and how the mind and brain can be transformed through experience and practice to enhance flourishing. Her research examines the neural correlates of meditation, with a focus on the shifts between mind wandering and attention. She has also contributed to neuroscience curriculum development, teaching, and textbook creation for the Emory Tibet Science Initiative, which aims to integrate science into the Tibetan monastic education system in India. Wendy now serves as senior scientific officer at the Mind & Life Institute in Massachusetts.