Fabrice Parmentier (Main Applicant and Fellow of the Bial Foundation) together with Pilar Andrés, Mauro García-Toro, Javier García-Campayo and Margalida Gili-Planas have been awarded 47500 Euros of research funding from the Bial Foundation to investigate the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and distraction. The 3-year project entitled "A study of the relationship between mindfulness, distraction and brain stimulation" is scheduled to start on June 1st, 2015.

The project will explore the links between mindfulness, psychological processes such as emotional regulation, attentional control and ruminations, as well as performance in a series of laboratory-based tasks measuring attentional functions. The project will also involve an experiment using brain stimulation with the aim to investigate the potential link between mindfulness and the activity of frontal cortical regions.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness can be described as a specific way to pay attention: on purpose, in the present moment and in a nonjudgmental way (Kabat-Zinn, 1994). Originating from Buddhist meditation (Braer, 2003), the concept of mindfulness forms part of a rapidly increasing number of psychological treatments. More generally, mindfulness is thought to help develop core processes such as cognitive flexibility and attention and the better regulation of emotions (Malinowski, 2013).

References

Baer, R. A. (2003). Mindfulness training as a clinical intervention: A conceptual and empirical review. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 10, 125-142.

Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness meditation in everyday life. New York, NY: Hyperion.

Malinowski, P. (2013). Neural mechanisms of attentional control in mindfulness meditation. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 7, doi: 10.3389/fnins.2013.00008.