# M4: Mindfulness Mechanisms and Methods Meeting

> **NIH NIH R13** · WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $30,000

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
This proposal requests funding support for a small-group scientific conference focused on Mindfulness
Mechanisms and Methods. In the last decade, supported by the trans-NIH BRAIN Initiative, tremendous
advances have been made in the development of available tools and technologies that have the potential to that
revolutionize our understanding of the human brain. In parallel, scientific interest and research on mindfulness
meditation has exploded, including that focused on key brain mechanisms of action by which mindfulness
practices yield beneficial effects on psychological health and well-being, with much of this work occurring through
NCCIH support. Yet progress in this subfield, which has been termed contemplative neuroscience, has not
been as rapid as it should be, due to a due to a number of challenges: a) lack of fluency, and even awareness,
among many contemplative neuroscientists regarding current advances and the new tools available; b) minimal
interactions between basic researchers and technology developers, who can generate both constraints and new
ideas, regarding how to more effectively deploy and disseminate these tools; and c) insufficient dialogue between
researchers and advanced practitioners, regarding best practices on how to utilize this modern cognitive
neuroscience toolkit within the context of mindfulness instruction and therapeutic intervention. We propose to
organize a scientific meeting to address these challenges. The objective of the meeting will be to create a forum
in which different constituencies can gather for intensive and extended inter-disciplinary dialogue and discussion.
Additionally, a select group of junior trainees will be awarded travel fellowships to attend the meeting, in order to
engage in discussions, receive feedback on their own work, and network with leading figures in this field.
Following the conference, a special issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and
Neuroimaging will disseminate and attract scientific attention to the topics covered in the meeting, with
submissions coming from meeting participants and other solicited investigators. Additionally, a group-authored
position paper from conference participants (in the Biological Psychiatry sister journal Global Open Science) will
lay out the most promising research questions and strategies that can be most productively investigated via inter-
disciplinary teams of basic and aging researchers, thus facilitating the formation of such teams, and attracting
the interest of an international audience.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10469214
- **Project number:** 1R13AT011981-01
- **Recipient organization:** WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** TODD S BRAVER
- **Activity code:** R13 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $30,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-04-01 → 2024-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10469214

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10469214, M4: Mindfulness Mechanisms and Methods Meeting (1R13AT011981-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-28 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10469214. Licensed CC0.

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