Despite myriad challenges, clinicians see room for progress.
Image credit: Shutterstock/David Tadevosian.
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Edited by Edward E. Smith, Columbia University, New York, NY, and approved May 29, 2007 (received for review August 3, 2006)
Abstract
Meditation refers to a family of mental training practices that are designed to familiarize the practitioner with specific types of mental processes. One of the most basic forms of meditation is concentration meditation, in which sustained attention is focused on an object such as a small visual stimulus or the breath. In age-matched participants, using functional MRI, we found that activation in a network of brain regions typically involved in sustained attention showed an inverted u-shaped curve in which expert meditators (EMs) with an average of 19,000 h of practice had more activation than novices, but EMs with an average of 44,000 h had less activation. In response to distracter sounds used to probe the meditation, EMs vs. novices had less brain activation in regions related to discursive thoughts and emotions and more activation in regions related to response inhibition and attention. Correlation with hours of practice suggests possible plasticity in these mechanisms.
Footnotes
- §To whom correspondence should be addressed at: W. M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin, 1500 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI 53705. E-mail: rjdavids{at}wisc.edu
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Author contributions: J.A.B.-L. and A.L. contributed equally to this work; A.L., H.S.S., and R.J.D. designed research; J.A.B.-L., A.L., and R.J.D. performed research; J.A.B.-L., A.L., and D.B.L. analyzed data; and J.A.B.-L. and R.J.D. wrote the paper.
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The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
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This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0606552104/DC1.
- Abbreviations:
- Amyg,
- amygdala;
- DLPFC,
- dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex;
- EM,
- expert meditator;
- NM,
- novice meditator;
- INM,
- incentive NM;
- IFG,
- inferior frontal gyrus;
- Ins,
- insula;
- IPS,
- intraparietal sulcus;
- LO,
- lateral occipital;
- LHEMs,
- EMs with the least hours of practice;
- MHEM,
- EMs with the least hours of practice;
- MeFG,
- medial frontal gyrus;
- Acc,
- anterior cingulate;
- Med.,
- meditation;
- P.,
- posterior;
- P. Cing,
- P. cingulate;
- ROI,
- region of interest;
- SFG,
- superior frontal gyrus;
- MFG,
- middle frontal gyrus.
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Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
- © 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners
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