The Emerging Science of Human Potential (for the curious)
This is a collection of fundamental scientific papers (all in the public domain) related to brain science, relationships, well-being, contemplative practice, and related topics.
Neurology
Changes in Cortical Dopamine D1 Receptor Binding Associated with Cognitive Training
A Default Mode of Brain Function
The Dynamic Brain: From Spiking Neurons to Neural Masses and Cortical Fields
Mapping the Structural Core of Human Cerebral Cortex
Six Views of Embodied Cognition
Wandering Minds: The Default Network and Stimulus-Independent Thought
What Is the Function of the Claustrum?
Systems Theory
Cognitive Time Scales in a Necker-Zeno Model for Bistable Perception
Contextual Emergence from Physics to Cognitive Neuroscience
Consciousness
Are There Neural Correlates of Consciousness?
Integrated Information in Discrete Dynamical Systems: Motivation and Theoretical Framework
Meditation and the Neuroscience of Consciousness
Neurophenomenology and Contemplative Experience
Paying Attention to Consciousness
The Unbearable Automaticity of Being
Mindfulness and Meditation
A Cartography of the Ecstatic and Meditative States
Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation
Attentional Modulation of Primary Interoceptive and Exteroceptive Cortices
Attention Regulation and Monitoring in Meditation
The Benefits of Being Present: Mindfulness and Its Role in Psychological Well-Being
The Dynamics of Theravāda Insight Meditation – Insight Analayo
Long-Term Meditators Self-Induce High-Amplitude Gamma Synchrony During Mental Practice
Meditation and the Neuroscience of Consciousness
Mental Training Affects Distribution of Limited Brain Resources
Mindfulness: A Proposed Operational Definition
Mindfulness Training as A Clinical Intervention: A Conceptual and Empirical Review
Mindfulness Training Modifies Subsystems of Attention
Neurophenomenology and Contemplative Experience
Psychobiology of Altered States of Consciousness
Short-Term Meditation Training Improves Attention and Self-Regulation
Studying the Well-Trained Mind
Thinking About Not Thinking: Neural Correlates of Conceptual Processing During Zen Meditation
The Unique Brain Anatomy of Meditation Practitioners: Alterations in Cortical Gyrification
Zazen and Cardiac Variability
Psychotherapy
A Neurobiologically Informed Perspective on Psychotherapy
A New Intellectual Framework for Psychiatry
Nutrition
Positive Psychology
Adaptive Mental Mechanisms – Their Role in A Positive Psychology
A Functional Genomic Perspective on Human Well-Being
The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success?
Beyond the Hedonic Treadmill – Revising the Adaptation Theory of Well-Being
Cultivating Positive Emotions to Optimize Health and Well-Being
Does Positive Affect Influence Health?
Happiness Unpacked: Positive Emotions Increase Life Satisfaction By Building Resilience
Happy People Live Longer: Subjective Well-Being Contributes to Health and Longevity
Maximizing Versus Satisficing: Happiness Is a Matter of Choice
Money Giveth, Money Taketh Away: The Dual Effect of Wealth on Happiness
The Neural Bases of Key Competencies of Emotional Intelligence
On Happiness and Human Potentials: A Review of Research on Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being
Physiological Effects of Free Singing. Pilot Study on a Novel Approach of Singing Therapy
Positive Psychology Progress Empirical Validation of Interventions
Psychological Resources, Positive Illusions, and Health
Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change
Resting Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Is Associated with Tonic Positive Emotionality
Subjective Well-Being: Three Decades of Progress
Well-Being Building Bridges Between Buddhism and Western Psychology
Pain and Punishment
Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion
Placebo and Opioid Analgesia – Imaging A Shared Neuronal Network
Pleasure and Reward
Affective Neuroscience of Pleasure: Reward in Humans and Animals
Baby Schema Modulates The Brain Reward System In Nulliparous Women
Cocaine Cues And Dopamine In Dorsal Striatum: Mechanism of Craving In Cocaine Addiction
Decision Utility, the Brain, and Pursuit of Hedonic Goals
Dissecting Components of Reward: ‘Liking’, ‘Wanting’, and Learning
Duality of Salience in Dopamine Neurons
Dynamic Computation of Incentive Salience: “Wanting” What Was Never “Liked”
Hedonic Hot Spots in the Brain
Liking’ and ‘Wanting’ Food Rewards: Brain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disorders
Motivational Salience: Amygdala Tuning from Traits, Needs, Values, and Goals
The Neurobiology of Pleasure, Reward Processes, Addiction and Their Health Implications
The Tempted Brain Eats: Pleasure and Desire Circuits in Obesity and Eating Disorders
Towards a Functional Neuroanatomy of Pleasure and Happiness
Negativity Bias
Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion
Emotion
Anatomy In Emotion: A Meta-Analysis of Findings from Neuroimaging
Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion
Emotion-Induced Changes in Human Medial Prefrontal Cortex: During Anticipatory Anxiety
The Eureka Hunt: Why Do Good Ideas Come to Us When They Do?
Integration of Emotion and Cognition in the Lateral Prefrontal Cortex
Neuroimaging Support for Discrete Neural Correlates of Basic Emotions: A Voxel-Based Meta-Analysis
Resilient Individuals use Positive Emotions to Bounce Back from Negative Emotional Experiences
When Your Gain Is My Pain and Your Pain Is My Gain: Neural Correlates of Envy and Schadenfreude
Valence, Gender, and Lateralization of Functional Brain
Cognition
Integration of Emotion and Cognition in the Lateral Prefrontal Cortex
Prefrontal Cortex and Flexible Cognitive Control: Rules Without Symbols
Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes
Decision-Making
Decision Making, the P3, and the Locus Coeruleus-Norepinephrine System
Dissociable Intrinsic Connectivity Networks for Salience Processing and Executive Control
The Neural Basis of Economic Decision-Making in the Ultimatum Game
Resilience and Coping
A Hot/Cool-System Analysis of Delay of Gratification: Dynamics of Willpower
Emotion Regulation in Everyday Life
Emotion-Related Self-Regulation and Its Relation to Children’s Maladjustment
Having a Word With Yourself: Neural Correlates of Self-Criticism and Self-Reassurance
Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience
Neural Correlates of Evaluation Associated with Promotion and Prevention Regulatory Focus
Protective and Damaging Effects of Stress Mediators: Central Role of the Brain
Risk and Reward Are Processed Differently in Decisions Made Under Stress
Societal vs. Individual Risk of Death in the United Kingdom
Stress Reduction Correlates with Structural Changes in the Amygdala
Memory and Learning
Internally Generated Reactivation of Single Neurons in Human Hippocampus During Free Recall
The Labile Nature of Consolidation Theory
Mechanisms for Selection of Basic Motor Programs – Roles for the Striatum and Pallidum
Gender
The Gender Similarities Hypothesis
Communication
Is Communication A Skill? Communication Behaviors and Being in Relationships
Relationships
Altruistic Helping in Human Infants and Young Chimpanzees
Biology, Politics, and the Emerging Science of Human Nature
The Cognitive Niche: Coevolution of Intelligence, Sociality, and Language
Cooperative Behavior Cascades in Human Social Networks
Cortical Mechanisms of Human Imitation
Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion
Do You Feel My Pain? Racial Group Membership Modulates Empathic Neural Responses
Effects of Intranasal Oxytocin on ‘Compassion Focused Imagery
Emotions Promote Social Interaction by Synchronizing Brain Activity Across Individuals
Empathy: Its Ultimate and Proximate Bases
Group Competition, Reproductive Leveling, and the Evolution of Human Altruism
Loving-Kindness and Compassion Meditation: Potential for Psychological Interventions
Neural Responses to Taxation and Voluntary Giving Reveal Motives for Charitable Donations
A Nonsimultaneous, Extended, Altruistic-Donor Chain
Nonverbal Behavior and the Vertical Dimension of Social Relations: A Meta-Analysis
Oxytocin, Vasopressin, and the Neurogenetics of Sociality
Oxytocin and the Neural Mechanisms Regulating Social Cognition and Affiliative Behavior
The Polyvagal Theory: Phylogenetic Substrates of a Social Nervous System
The Power of Mindful Empathy to Heal Toxic Shame
Relationships as Regulators: A Psychobiologic Perspective on Bereavement
Self-Compassion: Conceptualizations, Correlates, & Interventions
The Selfish Nature of Generosity: Harassment and Food Sharing in Primates
Sex-Linked Neuroanatomical Basis of Human Altruistic Cooperativeness
Social Groups That Elicit Disgust Are Differentially Processed in mPFC
Social Isolation Kills, But How and Why?
Social Transmission of Face Preferences Among Humans
Speaker–Listener Neural Coupling Underlies Successful Communication
Self
Philosophical Conceptions of the Self: Implications for Cognitive Science
What Is Self-Specific? Theoretical Investigation and Critical Review of Neuroimaging Results
Morality
An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment
Neural Correlates of Human Virtue Judgment
The Neural Basis of Human Social Values: Evidence from Functional MRI
Neural Responses to Taxation and Voluntary Giving Reveal Motives for Charitable Donations
Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans
Depression
Amygdala Volume in Major Depressive Disorder: A Meta-Analysis of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Studies
Phenylethylamine, a Possible Link to the Antidepressant Effects of Exercise?
Drugs
Drug Abuse: Hedonic Homeostatic Dysregulation
The Incentive Sensitization Theory of Addiction: Some Current Issues
The Neurobiology of Addiction An Overview
Neurobiology of Nicotine Addiction: Implications for Smoking Cessation Treatment
Neurobiology of Nicotine Dependence
Neurotheology
The Origin And Evolution of Religious Prosociality
Evolution
Non-Human Species
The Bonobo Genome Compared with the Chimpanzee and Human Genomes
DANIEL GALOVAN 