Studies purporting to show changes in brain structure following the popular, 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course are widely referenced despite major methodological limitations.
Richie Davidson
Richard J Davidson, PhD – Slide of the Week
The uncinate fasciculus is a white matter tract that may facilitate emotion regulation by carrying connections from the prefrontal cortex to regions of the temporal lobe, including the amygdala. Depression and anxiety are associated with reduced uncinate fasciculus fractional anisotropy (FA) – a diffusion tensor imaging measure related to white matter integrity.
Richard J Davidson, PhD – Slide of the Week
Teachers vary in their ability to enact effective teaching practices. We randomly assigned 88 early education preservice teachers to standard teacher education or teacher education plus a 9-week mindfulness-based intervention. Using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) as our primary outcome, we assessed effective teaching practices at baseline and at a 6-month follow-up that occurred during full-time student teaching.
Richard Davidson, PhD – Slide of the Week
The ability to understand emotional experiences of others, empathy, is a valuable skill for effective social interactions. Various types of training increase empathy in adolescents, but their impact on brain circuits underlying empathy has not been examined. Video games provide a unique medium familiar and engaging to adolescents and can be used to deliver training at scale.
Mental health in pregnancy may affect development of newborns’ brains
By Marianne Spoon, UW Communications Many factors can influence the development of a baby during pregnancy and after birth, but until recently, researchers knew little about the relationship between an expectant mother’s mental health and …
Richard Davidson, PhD
Empathy, the ability to understand others’ emotions, can occur through perspective taking and experience sharing. Neural systems active when adults empathize include regions underlying perspective taking (e.g. medial prefrontal cortex; MPFC), and experience sharing (e.g. inferior parietal lobule; IPL).
Richie Davidson, PhD
Title: Enhanced Prefrontal-Amygdala Connectivity Following Childhood Adversity as a Protective Mechanism Against Internalizing in Adolescence Legend: Childhood adversity predicts greater amygdala–medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) functional connectivity (FC) in adolescence, but it is moderated by internalizing …
Richard Davidson, PhD
Title: Amygdala and hippocampal volume is reduced in children exposed to different forms of adversity Legend: Volumetric comparisons for the left amygdala (A) and left (B) and right (C) hippocampus. For each graph, standardized residuals controlling …
From the Midwest to Davos, Richard Davidson is starting conversations on mindfulness, happiness, and the power of giving
Are we in the throes of a “zeitgeist” moment, when world leaders and CEOs embrace the role that mindfulness plays in cultivating health, compassion and happiness?
Can videogames create mindful teens? UW-Madison researchers look into the therapeutic possibilities
Teenagers spurning family time and conversation for Candy Crush during the holiday season is nearly as common a sight these days as turkey and baked ham.