Abstract
Focused attention meditation (FAM) practices are cognitive control exercises where meditators learn to maintain focus and
attention in the face of distracting stimuli. Previous studies have shown that FAM is both activating and causing plastic changes
to the mesolimbic dopamine system and some of its target structures, particularly the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and
striatum. Feedback-based learning also depends on these systems and is known to be modulated by tonic dopamine levels.
Capitalizing on previous findings that FAM practices seem to cause dopamine release, the present study shows that FAM
experience predicts learning from negative feedback on a probabilistic selection task. Furthermore, meditators exhibited attenuated feedback-related negativity (FRN) as compared with nonmeditators and this effect scales with meditation experience.
Given that reinforcement learning and FRN are modulated by dopamine levels, a possible explanation for our findings is that
FAM practice causes persistent increases in tonic dopamine levels which scale with amount of practice, thus altering feedback
processing.