Short-term studies (1 week) have not discovered significant effects in alerting, but studies investigating long-term meditation have detected changes in alerting. Early phases of mindfulness meditation may involve improvements in conflict monitoring and orienting, whereas later phases may mainly involve improved alerting.


Effects of short-term vs. long-term interventions on meditation

Brain regions involved in attentional control that have shown changes:

Anterior cingulate cortex 

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Putamen

Parietal lobe

Neural mechanisms of attention in mindfulness meditation

Mindfulness meditation improves conflict monitoring and reduces attentional blink. These changes were studies using the attention network test (ANT) and other experimental paradigms to determine the effects of meditation on attentional performance.

University of Georgia

Mindfulness meditation  may  effect the cognitive processes of enhanced self-regulation, including attention control, emotion regulation and self-awareness.  Scientists have discovered changes in brain structure related to mindfulness meditation in brain regions that control these cognitive processes.

Neuroscience of Mindfulness Meditation

A blanket term used to describe the various sub-process that underlie an individual's ability to direct internal awareness of various external stimuli. Examples include "alerting" (becoming aware of stimuli entering one's conscious attention), "conflict monitoring" (mitigating disctraction), and "sustained attention" (the ability to maintain singular focus for an extended period of time).

Attention in Mindfulness

Tang, YY., Hölzel, B. & Posner, M. The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation. Nat Rev Neurosci 16, 213–225 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3916.

The Neuroscience of Mindfulness Meditation

Volumetry

Concentration

Thickness

Fractional Anisotropy

Diffusivity

Gyrification

Morphometric measures used to study neural changes in meditation practitioners 

Morphometric neuroimaging seeks to discover whether meditation is a form of skill learning that can produce anatomical changes in the brain. These  changes would  implicate  increases in brain structure as a partial neural explanation for the numerous cognitive and emotional benefits of mediation.

Meaning of changes in brain structure of meditators

Effects of mindfulness meditation on attention

Mindfulness meditation has been shown to lead to the development of skills that allow individuals to regulate their emotions effectively as they arise. 

Through fMRI and DTI, activity changes were shown in several regions, including: amygdala, insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and adjacent prefrontal cortex. 
Decreased activity in the amygdala and insula, paired with increased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and adjacent prefrontal cortex, signifies both more stability in emotion regulation and better impulse control.

Effect of Mindfulness Meditation on Emotion Regulation

- models of food intake regulation that emphasize the interplay of psychological and physiological control processes
- self-regulation theory
- neuro-cognitive and therapeutic models of mindfulness meditation

Theoretical Approaches in Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training

- Anterior Cingulate Cortex
- Insular Cortex
- Prefrontal Cortex
- Amygdala

Areas of the Brain Responsible for Mindfulness

As Intentional Mindfulness is practiced, the brain begins to acquire "learned" mindfulness (otherwise known as Dispositional or Trait Mindfulness). Extensively trained mindfulness practitioners have a keen sense of their current surroundings, a deep understanding of the body, and overall contain high levels of Dispositional Mindfulness. 

The Mindfully Trained Brain

When two stimuli are presented in quick succession, most people fail to identify the second stimuli, known as Attentional Blink. Thought to be the result of limited attentional resources, mindfulness research shows that seasoned meditators were able to correctly identify the second stimulus. EEG recordings confirm lower brain activity in response to the first stimulus, suggesting meditators reserve more attentional resources across various stimuli for a more fully engaged deployment of conscious attention.

Attentional Blink in Mindfulness

- increase in perceptual sensitivity and improved vigilance in a sustained visual attention task
- increased activation in the attention network (prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate among other regions)
- less impulsiveness, tolerance to stressors, and heightened self-esteem
- increased response inhibition predicting adaptive socio-emotional functioning 
- reduced ruminative thinking and anxiety 
- increased empathy and self-compassion 
- reduced stress symptoms, helps in the process of positive reappraisal to deal with stress

Cognitive and Psychological Effects of Meditation Retreats

Attentional deployment is a type of emotional regulation strategy in which a person attempts to alter their emotional state by shifting their attention in a particular way as the situation arises. 

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