American Mindfulness Research Association - AMRA

American Mindfulness Research Association - AMRA Our mission is to support empirical and conceptual efforts to establish an evidence base for the process, practice, and construct of mindfulness.

The American Mindfulness Research Association (AMRA) was founded in 2013. Our mission is to support empirical and conceptual efforts to establish an evidence base for the process, practice, and construct of mindfulness; promote best evidence-based standards for the use of mindfulness research and its applications; and facilitate mindfulness-related dialogue and discovery. AMRA serves as a professi

onal resource to the sciences and humanities, practice communities, and the broader public on mindfulness from the perspective of contemplative practice.

Parents caring for children with physical disabilities (https://goamra.org/news/) often manage demanding medical, rehabi...
07/15/2026

Parents caring for children with physical disabilities (https://goamra.org/news/) often manage demanding medical, rehabilitation, educational, and daily-care responsibilities. These responsibilities can persist for years and may contribute to chronic stress, emotional exhaustion, and reduced quality of life. Mothers frequently assume the largest share of this care, yet relatively few randomized trials have evaluated structured stress-management programs specifically for this population.

Taşkaya and colleagues [Journal of Affective Disorders] examined whether Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) could reduce parental stress and improve mindfulness and quality of life among mothers of children with physical disabilities.

Perinatal depression in mothers is common (https://goamra.org/news/) and is associated with preterm birth and low birth ...
07/07/2026

Perinatal depression in mothers is common (https://goamra.org/news/) and is associated with preterm birth and low birth weight. Although screening is widely recommended, many pregnant patients who screen positive or have elevated risk do not receive preventive mental health care. Barriers such as cost, transportation, time, staffing, insurance coverage, and limited availability of trained mental health providers make scalable preventive models especially important.

Acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) remains a major cause of cardiovascular mortality (https://goamra.org/news), ...
06/22/2026

Acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) remains a major cause of cardiovascular mortality (https://goamra.org/news), and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is a standard treatment for restoring coronary blood flow. Anxiety and depression after heart attack are associated with poorer cardiovascular prognosis, suggesting that stress-reduction interventions may have value as adjuncts to standard cardiac care. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) has shown some promise for improving emotional well-being in cardiac patients.

Psoriasis is a chronic, recurrent, systemic inflammatory (goAMRA.org/news) disease driven by immune-mediated factors and...
06/16/2026

Psoriasis is a chronic, recurrent, systemic inflammatory (goAMRA.org/news) disease driven by immune-mediated factors and characterized by skin lesions. Psychological comorbidity is common in psoriasis, with depression and anxiety among the most common conditions. Patients with both psoriasis and depression are at greater risk of developing psoriatic arthritis and experience heart attack and stroke. Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) has been shown to decrease depression and anxiety symptoms in patients with chronic medical conditions, and so may hold promise for psoriasis.

The biological origins of meditation (https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.70249) in humans remain ...
03/23/2026

The biological origins of meditation (https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.70249) in humans remain underexplored, despite extensive scholarship on its cultural history and health effects. We present a theoretical account that traces the origins of meditation to the evolutionarily conserved repertoire of defensive freezing. We propose that this ancient survival response—characterized by motoric immobility, heightened vigilance with narrowed attentional focus, and bradycardia—provided a behavioral, neural, and physiological substrate upon which operant and social reinforcement could act. Over evolutionary time, these response components may have been co-opted and selectively reinforced within early human social communities, giving rise to complex, structured behavioral repertoires resembling modern sitting and slow-movement meditative practices embedded within various cultural systems of teaching. Rather than viewing meditation as a human psychological innovation, we suggest it represents a culturally refined expression of an ancestral survival strategy, maintained and elaborated through reinforcement, mimicry, and verbal instruction, spanning the late Paleolithic era (approximately 150,000−200,000 years before present) to the present day. This framework recasts meditation as an evolved modulation of a more basic stress- and threat-related freezing response template, shaped and maintained through social reinforcement.

Childhood attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), characterized by inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity,...
03/19/2026

Childhood attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), characterized by inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity, often persists into adulthood. The ADHD Dual Pathway Model proposes that ADHD reflects two core deficits: executive dysfunction and difficulty tolerating delay. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have the potential to address both deficits. Meta-analytic evidence suggests that MBIs can reduce ADHD symptom severity and improve quality of life in adults with ADHD. Few studies have examined MBI effects explicitly from the standpoint of the Dual Pathway Model, possibly clarifying how changes in trait mindfulness relate to changes in executive function, delay tolerance, and ADHD symptoms.
https://goamra.org/news

Surgical patients’ preoperative cognitive-emotional (goAMRA.org/news) states may influence postoperative recovery and pa...
02/25/2026

Surgical patients’ preoperative cognitive-emotional (goAMRA.org/news) states may influence postoperative recovery and pain-related distress. Fear of pain and rumination about potential pain can interfere with successful postsurgical recovery. Mindfulness-based preoperative education may help reduce catastrophizing and rumination and, in turn, support recovery.

Pulmonary hypertension is a progressive lung disease (goAMRA.org/news) characterized by shortness of breath. Patients of...
02/11/2026

Pulmonary hypertension is a progressive lung disease (goAMRA.org/news) characterized by shortness of breath. Patients often have limitations on their daily activities and social roles. Treatment primarily involves pulmonary vasodilative medications, which can cause headaches, nausea, diarrhea, and other side effects. Severe cases carry an elevated risk for heart failure and sudden death.

02/11/2026

Kindness connects us, but science helps us understand why it matters. 👫

Join the Academy on March 3, 2026, for The Neuroscience of Kindness, a one-day conference exploring how compassion develops across the lifespan, shapes our brains, and impacts mental and physical health.

Through insights from leading experts, the program will spotlight the evolutionary roots of cooperation and practical strategies for fostering kindness in everyday settings - from workplaces to whole communities.

Discover how understanding the brain science of kindness can help build a healthier, more connected world.

Learn more and register: https://events.nyas.org/event/Kindness26/summary?utm_source=facebook_social&utm_medium=image3&utm_campaign=kindness26

Presented in partnership with West End Labs - New York, Center for Healthy Minds, and Humin.

We sometimes need to perform specific actions (more at https://goamra.org/news) at specific future times, such as rememb...
01/20/2026

We sometimes need to perform specific actions (more at https://goamra.org/news) at specific future times, such as remembering to take a medication an hour before dinner. Successfully completing these time-based prospective memory tasks requires keeping the task in mind while monitoring the passage of time. Because they require sustained attention and monitoring, these tasks place high demands on cognitive resources. Mindfulness training may improve the attentional allocation and monitoring capacities critical for successful task performance.

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