Science and Meditation

I've been working through the coursera course on Buddhism and modern psychology (which I found here in the additional courses section) and I've found it very informative. Through the forums there I found some interesting materials I'd like to share here for anyone interested.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281743550_How_does_it_feel_to_lack_a_sense_of_boundaries_A_case_study_of_a_long-term_mindfulness_meditatorThis article covers a case study on a long-term meditator and includes some interesting neuroscience. Also, the http://saronlab.ucdavis.edu/shamatha-project.htmlShamatha Project at UC Davis provides some of the most up-to-date information on meditation's effects on the body. I'll update this thread as I find more, but if anyone here has more information, please share it here.

Some additional articles:

Fjorback, L. (2012). Mindfulness and bodily distress. [Abstract]. Dan Med J. 2012 Nov;59(11):B4547. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23171754
Fjorback, L. (2011). Mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. [Abstract]. Acta Psychiatr Scand. 2011 Aug;124(2):102-19. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.2011.01704.x. Epub 2011 Apr 28. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21534932
King, A. (2016). A Pilot Study of Mindfulness-Based Exposure Therapy in OEF/OIF Combat Veterans with PTSD: Altered Medial Frontal Cortex and Amygdala Responses in Social–Emotional Processing. Front Psychiatry. 2016; 7: 154. Published online 2016 Sep 20. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2016.00154 www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5028840/

Forum said I had too many links so, more in the next post.

Fujino, M. (2018). Open monitoring meditation reduces the involvement of brain regions related to memory function. Sci Rep. 2018; 8: 9968. Published online 2018 Jul 2. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-28274-4 www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6028418/
Brewer, J. (2011). Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Dec 13; 108(50): 20254–20259. Published online 2011 Nov 23. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1112029108 www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3250176/
Hasenkamp, W. (2012). Mind wandering and attention during focused meditation: a fine-grained temporal analysis of fluctuating cognitive states. [Abstract]. Neuroimage. 2012 Jan 2;59(1):750-60. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.07.008. Epub 2011 Jul 14. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21782031
Garrison, K. (2015). Meditation leads to reduced default mode network activity beyond an active task. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2015 Sep; 15(3): 712–720. doi: 10.3758/s13415-015-0358-3 www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4529365/

I love this youtube video, It's why I first tried meditation.

Cool!

A fantastic video. Thanks for the share, Spanner.

A good general overview of current research, though the number of references is low: Meditation and Brain Changes: Recent Research and New Applications