Our mission
Everything we do leaves traces in the brain: learning a language, a stressful month, a good holiday. So the question is not whether meditation changes the brain. The question is which changes matter for people's lives, which are specific to meditation, and how they come about.
We start from changes people can notice in themselves or that others can see: feeling calmer, sleeping better, looking happier. Then we ask what goes with those changes in the body and the brain, and what causes them.
Why it matters
Interest in meditation has grown faster than the evidence. Many claims rest on small studies, and some well-known findings have not held up. People who practise, teach or prescribe meditation deserve a strong foundation to stand on. We want to build it: clear evidence of what meditation does, for whom, and how.
The questions we ask
What changes?
Which effects of meditation can people feel, and which can others observe?
What is specific?
Which changes come from the practice itself, and which come from rest, time away, expectation or simply being studied?
How does it work?
How do breathing, heartbeat, attention and brain activity interact while these changes take place?
How we work
We measure the whole person.
Experience, facial expression, breathing, heartbeat and brain, ideally in the same people at the same time.
We follow people over time.
We compare each person before and after a period of practice, and we compare them with well-matched groups who do not meditate.
We build models, not only maps.
Computational models of brain and body let us test explanations, not just record where things happen.
We aim for use.
Mindfulness is already offered in clinics, schools and workplaces. Our applied research asks what it can reliably offer there, and for whom.
Coming full circle
Meditation grew out of long traditions in Asia, among them Korea's own Seon Buddhism. Over the past decades it has become popular in Western societies, mostly in secular forms such as mindfulness, and most of the research on it has been done there. Now the practice is coming full circle. Working from Korea and Europe, we bring the traditions it comes from together with the methods of modern science.
Work with us
We welcome collaboration with researchers, meditation teachers, clinicians and funders who share this aim.