Dr. Ekaterina Denkova - Why Attention is Crucial for Memory and Mindfulness

Neuroscience Researcher Dr. Ekaterina Denkova discusses why attention is crucial for memory and mindfulness. Attention is the cornerstone of all cognitive activities, impacting our memory and mindfulness practices. Ekaterina explains how paying attention is essential for remembering and how our minds often wander, leading to distractions. She shares scientific studies that demonstrate how mindfulness can help us train our attention, reduce internal distractions, and enhance our cognitive control.

She highlights the importance of the default mode network in our brain and its role in mind wandering and memory. Through practical examples and research findings, she illustrates how mindfulness practices can attenuate this network's activity, helping us stay present and focused. Join her to learn more about the science behind attention and how mindfulness can transform our mental processes.

Learn more about Dr. Denkova Ekaterina

Science & Wisdom LIVE brings meditation practitioners in conversation with scientists to address the problems of contemporary society and come to new possible solutions.

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Transcript

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Attention. It's a very important process in everything that we are doing, we cannot remember something if we're not paying attention to it. So if there is something happening, if someone is telling you something, and then few minutes later, that person is asking your sake, oh, I don't remember. It's not exactly that you don't remember, or I don't remember you didn't pay or I didn't pay attention to that specific moment. So attention is really at fundamental it's really the foundation of every cognitive activity. So basically, we need to be present and pay attention in order to open the horizon for other things to happen, but usually and even during that presentation. So there are so many studies, for instance, in terms of for undergraduates, so when they're attending a lecture, half of the time, yeah, they're paying attention to the lecture. Half of the time, somewhere else. It's happening to all of us. We are going to a meeting with a friend, half of the time we are paying attention the other half, something else is happening. So what is that? Something else? It might be we're not feeling well, so we're paying attention to the feeling in the in the body. That's normal. It's okay. That can happen. It might be a noisy environment. So we are paying attention to the noises around us, and they're disturbing us, and that's that's distraction, external. External distraction is not really allowing us to pay attention. But one important aspect is when the mind wanders towards those internal thoughts, that's the more problematic we are with a friend, but in our thoughts, we're thinking about that car accident in the morning, and no, we are not paying attention to our friend. And we did a very nice and I studied just to show that basic phenomenon. We were showing people pictures faces, and they had to press a button. So that's very simple experiment. I hope that it's easy to understand. So basically showing faces, and every time a face appear on the screen, the person just need to click. So faces click. Faces click. Very simple, very simple task, very repetitive task. From time to time, the space is the other way around, upside down, and during that time, you should not press you should withhold your response. What is happening, because the task is very repetitive. At some point, we stopped paying attention. We are even not seeing the face on the screen because we are absorbed by our internal thoughts. And we saw in the brain, there is a response, basically the response in the brain that reacts to faces now it's attenuated, which means our we're perceptually decoupled. We are even not seeing in front of us, because our mind or our attention is really oriented towards ourselves or our thoughts. And of course, those are like very simple examples. They're maybe not so important, but maybe for people who have a high demand jobs or they really need to focus that that might have consequences even driving. We're driving and sometimes, because it's so automatic process and repetitive, we start thinking about other things. We are so absorbed that we even don't see the cars passing us. So sometimes, and that's how we can get into a car accident. So those are examples of how when our attention shifts towards those internal thoughts and engage with them in a maladaptive, repetitive way, that might be problematic, but there is a solution. We can notice that and then turn our attention to where it should be. And so that's where I'm saying and we consider mindfulness the tool that will help us, because as during a mindfulness practice, paying attention to the breath, noticing when the mind goes away, and gently returning it back. So basically, if we can train that capacity so that would never be doing a conversation with a friend, we can remind ourselves that's my dear friend. I need to pay attention to my friend right now. I will plan my my trip after when I go home, but now I'm with my friend, and I need to pay attention. So that's how we are considering, or how we are trying to study what is happening in the brain. Then where we can notice that our mind goes away and it's focusing on internal thoughts and returning it back. And their studies that are done in different aspects, there is a consistent pattern that when the mind goes away, there is a network. This is basically different regions that are talking to each other in a very persistent way, and basically that network is also the network that it's helping us remember memories. So I'm hoping that I'm now closing why I started with remembering. So remembering when we're remembering and thinking about any future scenarios, there are networks in the brain that are working together. So there is a specific configuration, and one aspect of that configuration we are seeing it when the mind wanders and goes away when it's not focused at the task at hand. And so that's just for probably, to give it the term. It's called the default mode network. So basically it's, it's a network of brain regions that are there when we think about past, when we think about the future, and so during mind wandering, that same network is so so engaged, which means it's really that remembering, or the past the past experiences that are fueling so basically, they're the fuel to mind wandering, and so that's where the negative aspect is. I started and said, remembering is really good. It can help us in a constructive way, but if we're engaging in maladaptive strategy, especially when we have something else to do, when the task at hand is something else, having a nice conversation with a friend, then it's problematic, because then we are even not noticing the person in front of us. We are really in our internal, repetitive thinking. And so that's one network that we are identifying during mind one, there are others. As I said, the brain works in all of the networks are involved in just the configuration that it's different. And so what we what we can see is that when we are asking people to do a focus attention meditation, basically that network in the brain that is for mind wandering. It's losing its strength. It's weakened. So that's a sign or something that we can say, okay, when we're engaged in a focus attention meditation, we're really strengthening those cognitive processes that allows us to have that awareness. What is happening, noticing the wandering mind and returning it back, returning attention back to that moment. And so there is now neuroscientific evidence that engaging in mindfulness practice helps with that attenuates, basically attenuates the signal and the interactions in those brain regions that are basically the fuel of all our preoccupations, ruminations and concerns and so, not only When we are doing it. But now, what mindfulness training that's to the brain, and their studies showing that when people just ask to go and spontaneously lay in a scanner, and their brain activity is recorded, so basically, they're laying like nothing. And. So they're asked just to lie then and think about everything that comes to their mind, before and after. So basically that the spontaneous activity of the brain, we are not engaging in everything. It's spontaneously what is happening. And then people are doing before and after, participation in the mindfulness training, and what is happening is that there is evidence that, again, this same network that I was telling was really highly involved when the mind wanders after mindfulness training, it's again lesson. And there are other networks that are about cognitive control and meta awareness that are basically trying to regulate so in very late terms. And I don't want to make any speculations, but basically the translation of all of that is that mindfulness training can basically increase that capacity of meta awareness and control so that The internal thoughts are not invading the present moment. You