Meditation clinical trials at UCSF

6 research studies open to eligible people

Meditation is a method to calm the mind and improve mental clarity. UCSF is studying how digital meditation can help older adults with stress and sleep issues. Another trial is exploring how meditation can reduce anxiety in people with eye diseases. These studies use digital tools to make meditation more accessible for improving health.

Showing trials for

  • Accelerating Cognitive Gains From Digital Inverventions With Noninvasive Brain Stimulation

    open to eligible people ages 60-85

    The overall goal of this project is to collect pilot feasibility and early efficacy data showing improvements in cognition and wellbeing in adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) through a combination treatment of non-invasive brain stimulation (transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS)) and a one of two digital cognitive interventions.

    San Francisco, California

  • Dynamic Neural Systems Underlying Social-emotional Functions in Older Adults

    open to eligible people ages 60-120

    Assess the impact of a remote, app-delivered digital meditation intervention on emotional well-being of lonely older adults. Neuroimaging, electrophysiological (EEG), and autonomic physiology will be used to assess the neural correlates of the intervention. EEG and autonomic physiology will be collected while participants watch 30 min of an awe-inspiring movie. fMRI and autonomic physiology will be collected in the context of a social exploration/exploitation task.

    San Francisco, California

  • Enhancing Attention and Wellbeing Using Digital Therapeutics

    open to eligible people ages 60-99

    The goals of the proposed research are to first determine the minimal and/or optimal dose of a digital intervention required for cognitive enhancement, and then to examine the impact of several potential moderators of treatment effects (i.e., cognitive decline, AD polygenic hazard score, cardiovascular risk, and race/ethnicity). This knowledge gained from his high-impact study with transform the field of cognitive interventions, paving the way for a precision medicine model for cognitive enhancing interventions that improve quality of life for older adults and individuals with cognitive deficits at risk of developing dementia.

    San Francisco, California

  • Mindfulness Approach for Reducing Anxiety and Gloom in Ocular Inflammatory Diseases

    open to eligible people ages 18 years and up

    The proposed study is a block-randomized, controlled trial to evaluate the effects of a digital meditation and mindfulness practice on mental health in patients with non-infectious uveitis.

    San Francisco, California

  • Neural Mechanisms of Meditation Training in Healthy and Depressed Adolescents: An MRI Connectome Study PART 2

    open to eligible people ages 14-18

    The primary objective will be to study changes in putamen connectivity and depression severity in depressed teens with meditation training. H1: Putamen node strength will increase in the training group compared to the active controls. H2: This increase in node strength will correlate with practice amount recorded by participants. H3: There will be a significant reduction in self-rated depression symptoms following the training as measured by the Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale (RADS-2), compared to controls. H4: This reduction will correlate with the increase in putamen node strength. Design and Outcomes: The current research study design will utilize an individually randomized group treatment, open-label, active-controlled clinical trial to test the efficacy and safety of the investigator's innovative mindfulness meditation intervention (Training for Awareness Resilience and Action [TARA]) on the primary outcome (Putamen structural node strength) and secondary outcome (depression symptoms measured using Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale [RADS-2]) in depressed adolescents between the ages of 14 to 18 years old.

    San Francisco, California

  • Digital Interventions on Cognition, Wellbeing, Stress, and Sleep in Older Adults

    open to eligible people ages 60-85

    The goal of this proposed research is to collect pilot data to test the hypothesis that treatment with a novel form of closed-loop digital meditation (MediTrain) will lead to a greater magnitude of gains in cognitive abilities in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), compared to OA without cognitive impairment, and will lead to improvements in quantitative measures of sleep.

    San Francisco, California

Our lead scientists for Meditation research studies include .

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