Funding: USC Department of Psychiatry, Della Martin Foundation

Meditation practices can evoke strong and significant changes in the experienced relationship to mental life. In this study we are seeking to understand the impact of mindfulness meditation on brain measures of attention and awareness in combination with the impact on measures of psychological well-being to assess the relationships therein. Participants will have brain measures recorded using EEG while engaging with specific auditory and visual cues to probe sensory and cognitive processing both before and after their engagement with an 8-week introductory course in mindfulness meditation.  We are also recruit long term meditator participants as a comparison group.

The study is constructed so as to generate insight into the neural changes underlying the practice of mindfulness meditation and their relationship to changes in stress, rumination, and depression as well as the experience of self and self-narrative processes.

To inquire about or enroll in this study please e-mail Dr. Raghu Appasani at Raghu.Appasani@med.usc.edu