Center for Healthy Minds

Our researchers are learning more about how very early experiences influence the developing brain and child well-being.

How does the relationship between mental and physical stress impact well-being?

Are people who are better at controlling their attention, emotion or pain responses in a laboratory setting more successful at carrying that skill into daily life?

Scholars at the Center examine perceptions and experiences related to mindfulness and how they contribute to studying differing practices.

How do people experience emotions over a period of time and what does that say about their resilience and well-being?

This study seeks to build upon knowledge from Tibetan medicine through examining well-being data and microbiome measures on a variety of people with varying levels of meditation training who have participated in previous intervention studies to gain a better understanding of what works for whom and why.

Center for Healthy Minds researchers are examining how emotion may play a role in the development of Alzheimer’s Disease.

How does a cognitive training program impact brain development in 6-year-old children?

Center researchers and collaborators are building new approaches to understand the links between traditional contemplative perspectives and scientific theory to better study the scientific effects of meditation training on the brain, body, mind and behavior.

Our scientists examine how individual differences in emotional reactivity and recovery to emotional stimuli, brain structure and patterns of brain activity are related to life experiences, personality, behavior, health and well-being across the adult lifespan in a large national longitudinal sample.

What drives moral behavior and greater well-being?

Following up with past research participants about the pandemic's impact on their lives and their current psychological outlook.

A global community of field researchers are collaborating on a study of an ancient monastic post-mortem meditative state known as tukdam, practiced by present-day expert Tibetan Buddhists and how such a practice might offer insight into mental, spiritual, and physical well-being during the death process, both for the dying and for their support community.

How can Buddhist traditions influence the study and practice of mindfulness today?

Center scientists and collaborators examine the impact of well-being training.

Can we use an evolutionary perspective to better understand depression?