Clifford Saron

Current Position: Research Scientist at the Center for Mind and Brain and MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis

Bio: Clifford Saron received his PhD in neuroscience from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in 1999. He has had a long-standing interest in the effects of contemplative practice on physiology and behaviour. In the early 1990s, he conducted field research investigating Tibetan Buddhist mind training under the auspices of the Office of H.H. the Dalai Lama. A faculty member at Mind and Life Summer Research Institutes in the US and Europe, he is currently a member of the Mind and Life Institute Steering Council. Saron directs the Shamatha Project, a multidisciplinary longitudinal investigation of the effects of intensive meditation on physiological and psychological processes central to well-being. In 2012, he and his research team were awarded the inaugural Templeton Prize Research Grant in honour of H.H. the Dalai Lama. His other research area focuses on sensory processing in children with autism spectrum disorders to better understand how they experience their everyday sensory environments.

Reference: Lutz, A., Jha, A. P., Dunne, J. D., & Saron, C. D., Investigating the phenomenological and neurocognitive matrix of mindfulness-related practices, American Psychologist, 70(7), 632–658 (2015).
Rosenberg, E. L., Zanesco, A. P., King, B. G., Aichele, S. R., Jacobs, T. L., Bridwell, D. A., Saron, C. D. Intensive meditation training influences emotional responses to suffering, Emotion (2015).
Saggar, M., Zanesco, A. P., King, B. G., Bridwell, D. A., MacLean, K. A., Aichele, S. R., Saron, C. D., Miikkulainen, R., Mean-field thalamocortical modeling of longitudinal EEG acquired during intensive meditation training , Neuroimage114, 88–104 (2015).
Zanesco, A. P., King, B. G., Maclean, K. A., & Saron, C. D., Executive control and felt concentrative engagement following intensive meditation training, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience(566), 1–13, (2013)
Kathleen A. Garrisona, 1, Dustin Scheinostb, Patrick D. Worhunskya, Hani M. Elwafia, Thomas A. Thornhill IVa, Evan Thompsonc, Clifford Sarond, Gaëlle Desbordese, Real-time fMRI links subjective experience with brain activity during focused attention, Neuroimage 81(110-8), (2013).