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.

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.

People even join “polar bear clubs,” where they swim [read more: https://goamra.org/news] in the winter ocean for purpor...
12/22/2025

People even join “polar bear clubs,” where they swim [read more: https://goamra.org/news] in the winter ocean for purported longevity. Cold-water immersion can stimulate the production of norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter linked to attention and mood regulation. Combining mindfulness with cold water immersion might be more effective than mindfulness alone for improving mood and forestalling cognitive decline in middle age and beyond.

Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) [read at goAMRA.org] experience repetitive intrusive thoughts and feel...
12/16/2025

Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) [read at goAMRA.org] experience repetitive intrusive thoughts and feel compelled to engage in ritualistic behaviors to reduce anxiety. Treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) that combines exposure therapy and response prevention can alleviate some symptoms. Yet treatment failure rates remain high (40-60%), and complete remission is rare.

Congratulations to the AMRA Early Career Scientist Award recipient for 205: Ryan Wexler, N.D. Ryan is a naturopathic phy...
11/17/2025

Congratulations to the AMRA Early Career Scientist Award recipient for 205: Ryan Wexler, N.D.

Ryan is a naturopathic physician-scientist and Assistant Professor at the Helfgott Research Institute at the National University of Natural Medicine. His research focuses on developing and evaluating multicomponent, mind-body interventions for patients with chronic pain, with particular emphasis on conditions involving nociplastic pain, chronic low back pain, and lumbosacral radiculopathy. He uses mixed methods to examine how mind-body interventions affect physical function and psychosocial outcomes – including motivation, autonomy, and self-efficacy.

Wexler, R. S., Fox, D. J., ZuZero, D., Bollen, M., Parikshak, A., Edmond, H., ... & Pickworth, C. K. (2024). Virtually delivered Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) reduces daily pain intensity in patients with lumbosacral radiculopathy: a randomized controlled trial. Pain Reports.

Wexler, R. S., Fox, D. J., Edmond, H., Lemau, J., ZuZero, D., Bollen, M., ... & Pickworth, C. K. (2022). Protocol for mindfulness-oriented recovery enhancement (MORE) in the management of lumbosacral radiculopathy/radiculitis symptoms: A randomized controlled trial. Contemporary Clinical Trials Communications.

To support our grant program, join as a member and make a donation at https://goamra.org/membership

Digital health feedback technologies are expected to help address the projected 630 million individuals with prediabetes...
11/03/2025

Digital health feedback technologies are expected to help address the projected 630 million individuals with prediabetes worldwide by 2045. This Viewpoint article characterises the historical use of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems in behavioural research with a focus on the prediabetic population. We identified 19 peer-reviewed studies through a pragmatic literature review and reported key methodological features, including study design, sensor wear protocols, data masking strategies, the role of CGM in behavioural interventions, and approaches to generate CGM metrics. Based on our literature review...
https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S2589-7500(25)00086-X

Over one-third of older adults report feeling lonely (more at https://goamra.org/news), and loneliness is a stronger pre...
10/27/2025

Over one-third of older adults report feeling lonely (more at https://goamra.org/news), and loneliness is a stronger predictor of mortality than smoking, physical inactivity, or obesity. It also increases the risk of numerous adverse outcomes, including dementia, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and su***de. Psychosocial interventions that simply increase the frequency of social contact are often ineffective. It may be more important to target the psychological factors that make social interactions feel unrewarding.

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