Mind & Life Podcast

Dave Vago – Meditation, Neuroscience, and Self

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June 3, 2024

View or download a transcript of this episode

In this episode, Wendy speaks with contemplative neuroscientist Dave Vago. Dave has been studying the brain, meditation, and the self for over two decades, and has developed several models of how mindfulness might work from cognitive and neurobiological perspectives. This conversation covers many topics, including:

Dave Vago, PhD
  • his intertwined interests in brain, mind, self, philosophy, and religion;
  • the temporal nature of memory;
  • mindfulness for fibromyalgia and chronic pain;
  • unconscious attentional bias;
  • sticky thoughts and how they change with meditation;
  • the role of the self in contemplative practice (S-ART model);
  • meta-awareness and decentering;
  • the centrality of inhibitory control in contemplative practice;
  • dissolving the self/other divide;
  • integrating wisdom to create meaning;
  • how meditation can shift attentional bias at very early levels of processing;
  • the deeply interconnected nature of brain function;
  • self-pattern theory and (in)flexibility in the mind;
  • mindfulness and the glymphatic system, and implications for sleep and neurodegenerative disorders;
  • and the new academic society for contemplative research (ISCR).

David Vago, PhD is a scientific advisor to the contemplative science academic community, as well as the digital health and well-being industry. He is a Research Associate at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and serves on the executive committee for the International Society for Contemplative Research. David’s program of research broadly focuses on characterizing the neurobiological and psychosocial mechanisms underlying adaptive mind-brain-body interactions, and their therapeutic relevance in the context of mental health and well-being. He is formerly an Associate Professor of Psychology at Vanderbilt University, where he was also the Research Director for the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. He has received research grants from the NIH and private foundations, and has published over 85 peer-reviewed journal articles, chapters, and science abstracts cited over 13,200 times. David has given over 150 keynote and invited lectures, oral presentations, and grand rounds, and his research has been featured in the Huffington Post, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Newsweek, Scientific American, and NPR, among others.

Resources

Personal Website: Contemplative Neurosciences