Meditation effects within the hippocampal complex revealed by voxel-based morphometry and cytoarchitectonic probabilistic mapping.

Scientific studies addressing anatomical variations in meditators' brains have emerged rapidly over the last few years, where significant links are most frequently reported with respect to gray matter (GM). To advance prior work, this study examined GM characteristics in a large sample of 100 subjects (50 meditators, 50 controls), where meditators have been practicing close to 20 years, on average. A standard, whole-brain voxel-based morphometry approach was applied and revealed significant meditation effects in the vicinity of the hippocampus, showing more GM in meditators than in controls as well as positive correlations with the number of years practiced. However, the hippocampal complex is regionally segregated by architecture, connectivity, and functional relevance. Thus, to establish differential effects within the hippocampal formation (cornu ammonis, fascia dentata, entorhinal cortex, subiculum) as well as the hippocampal-amygdaloid transition area, we utilized refined cytoarchitectonic probabilistic maps of (peri-) hippocampal subsections. Significant meditation effects were observed within the subiculum specifically. Since the subiculum is known to play a key role in stress regulation and meditation is an established form of stress reduction, these GM findings may reflect neuronal preservation in long-term meditators-perhaps due to an attenuated release of stress hormones and decreased neurotoxicity

Enhanced tactile acuity through mental states

Bodily training typically evokes behavioral and perceptual gains, enforcing neuroplastic processes and affecting neural representations. We investigated the effect on somatosensory perception of a three-day Zen meditation exercise, a purely mental intervention. Tactile spatial discrimination of the right index finger was persistently improved by only 6 hours of mental-sensory focusing on this finger, suggesting that intrinsic brain activity created by mental states can alter perception and behavior similarly to external stimulation

Increased gray matter volume in the right angular and posterior parahippocampal gyri in loving-kindness meditators

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Potential Therapeutic Effects of Meditation for Treating Affective Dysregulation.

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Dementia in Primary Care: Prevalence to Partnerships

Dementia in Primary Care: Prevalence to Partnerships. 01.26.22 Part

A Longitudinal Study Of The Effect Of Short-term Meditation Training On Functional Network Organization Of The Aging Brain

The beneficial effects of meditation on preserving age-related changes in cognitive functioning are well established. Yet, the neural underpinnings of these positive effects have not been fully unveiled. This study employed a prospective longitudinal design, and graph-based analysis, to study how an eight-week meditation training vs. relaxation training shaped network configuration at global, intermediate, and local levels using graph theory in the elderly. At the intermediate level, meditation training lead to decreased intra-connectivity in the default mode network (DMN), salience network (SAN) and somatomotor network (SMN) modules post training. Also, there was decreased connectivity strength between the DMN and other modules. At a local level, meditation training lowered nodal strength in the left posterior cingulate gryus, bilateral paracentral lobule, and middle cingulate gyrus. According to previous the literature, the direction of these changes is consistent with a movement towards a more self-detached viewpoint, as well as more efficient processing. Furthermore, our findings highlight the importance of considering brain network changes across organizational levels, as well as the pace at which these changes may occur. Overall, this study provides further support for short-term meditation as a potentially beneficial method of mental training for the elderly that warrants further investigation.published_or_final_versio

Islamic psycho-immunological approaches in increasing immunity during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has a significant impact on mental health because it can increase the risk of panic, anxiety, and fear in society. New normal conditions with various limitations require people to be adaptive in order to cope with stressors that arise during the pandemic. This condition could interfere with mental health and adversely affect the body’s immunity. Stress, through the nervous system, functions to help individuals move actively. In individuals who experience stress, the sympathetic system will activate various organs of the body causing the increment of blood sugar, blood pressure, muscle activities and metabolism which can reduce the immunity of individuals. Besides that, various efforts have been made as a form of controlling the spread of infection such as the application of health protocols, the concept of Iman (Faith), Imun (Immune), Aman (Secure), and vaccination. In addition, there are other efforts done by the Islamic religious people that hold approaches in the form of beliefs and daily life rituals, namely the concept of Dua, Ikhtiar, Tawakkul, and Tawadhu in facing the COVID-19 pandemic disaster. This concept is related to the psychoneuroimmunology aspect which, if applied correctly, can have an impact in finding mental resilience

Potential Therapeutic Effects of Meditation for Treating Affective Dysregulation

Affective dysregulation is at the root of many psychopathologies, including stress induced disorders, anxiety disorders, and depression. The root of these disorders appears to be an attenuated, top-down cognitive control from the prefrontal cortices over the maladaptive subcortical emotional processing. A form of mental training, long-term meditation practice can trigger meditation-specific neuroplastic changes in the brain regions underlying cognitive control and affective regulation, suggesting that meditation can act as a kind of mental exercise to foster affective regulation and possibly a cost-effective intervention in mood disorders. Increasing research has suggested that the cultivation of awareness and acceptance along with a nonjudgmental attitude via meditation promotes adaptive affective regulation. This review examined the concepts of affective regulation and meditation and discussed behavioral and neural evidence of the potential clinical application of meditation. Lately, there has been a growing trend toward incorporating the “mindfulness” component into existing psychotherapeutic treatment. Promising results have been observed thus far. Future studies may consider exploring the possibility of integrating the element of “compassion” into current psychotherapeutic approaches

Common and distinct lateralised patterns of neural coupling during focused attention, open monitoring and loving kindness meditation

Meditation has been integrated into different therapeutic interventions. To inform the evidence-based selection of specific meditation types it is crucial to understand the neural processes associated with different meditation practices. Here we explore commonalities and differences in electroencephalographic oscillatory spatial synchronisation patterns across three important meditation types. Highly experienced meditators engaged in focused attention, open monitoring, and loving kindness meditation. Improving on previous research, our approach avoids comparisons between groups that limited previous findings, while ensuring that the meditation states are reliably established. Employing a novel measure of neural coupling – the imaginary part of EEG coherence – the study revealed that all meditation conditions displayed a common connectivity pattern that is characterised by increased connectivity of (a) broadly distributed delta networks, (b) left-hemispheric theta networks with a local integrating posterior focus, and (c) right-hemispheric alpha networks, with a local integrating parieto-occipital focus. Furthermore, each meditation state also expressed specific synchronisation patterns differentially recruiting left- or right-lateralised beta networks. These observations provide evidence that in addition to global patterns, frequency-specific inter-hemispheric asymmetry is one major feature of meditation, and that mental processes specific to each meditation type are also supported by lateralised networks from fast-frequency bands

Meditation and Cognitive Function Research Study

Although research has shown that long-term guided meditation and mindfulness practices improve attention, memory, and processing speed, the research on the effects of short-term self-guided meditation on improving cognitive processing and memory is limited. This study examined whether a brief self-guided meditation practice improved cognitive processing speed and memory capacity. The participants engaged in a five-day program which consisted of taking an online mental speed test and memory recall test, then meditated for 15 minutes a day, for five days. After completing the five-day meditation program, the participants took the two cognitive processing tests again. The results on the test scores showed an average increase in three points in the mental test and two points in the memory test scores. A paired-sample equal variance t-test determined there was no significant statistical difference made by the five-day meditation experiment. These findings in this study build on the knowledge and understanding of the impact of short-term meditation