Age effects on gray matter volume and attentional performance in Zen meditation

@article{Pagnoni2007AgeEO,
  title={Age effects on gray matter volume and attentional performance in Zen meditation},
  author={Giuseppe Pagnoni and Milos Cekic},
  journal={Neurobiology of Aging},
  year={2007},
  volume={28},
  pages={1623-1627}
}

Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density

Effects of Long-Term Mindfulness Meditation on Brain's White Matter Microstructure and its Aging

Preliminary indications that the practice of MM might result in WM connectivity change and might provide evidence on its ability to help diminish age-related WM degeneration in key regions which participate in processes of mindfulness are provided.

Brain Structure and Meditation: How Spiritual Practice Shapes the Brain

Differences in gray matter volume and density were found in circumscribed brain regions which are involved in interoception and in the regulation of arousal and emotions, namely insula, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and brainstem.

Neuroprotective effects of yoga practice: age-, experience-, and frequency-dependent plasticity

Yoga’s potential neuroprotective effects may provide a neural basis for some of its beneficial effects, and the combination of postures and meditation contributed the most to the size of the hippocampus, precuneus/PCC, and S1/SPL.

Meditation and Cognitive Ageing: the Role of Mindfulness Meditation in Building Cognitive Reserve

Mindfulness-related meditation practices engage various cognitive skills including the ability to focus and sustain attention, which in itself requires several interacting attentional subfunctions.

Diminished Age-Related Decline of the Amygdala in Long-Term Meditation Practitioners

Findings suggest that the age-related volume loss of the amygdala is less pronounced in long-term meditators, and this effect was particularly evident for the laterobasal subregion, which has been functionally linked to aspects of self-focused reflection.

Gray Matter Changes in Adolescents Participating in a Meditation Training

The results support previous findings that meditation affects regions associated with physical and emotional awareness and are different from previous morphometric studies in which meditation was associated with structural increases.

Erratum to: Meditation and Cognitive Ageing: the Role of Mindfulness Meditation in Building Cognitive Reserve

Mindfulness-related meditation practices engage various cognitive skills including the ability to focus and sustain attention, which in itself requires several interacting attentional subfunctions.
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 40 REFERENCES

Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness

Between-group differences in prefrontal cortical thickness were most pronounced in older participants, suggesting that meditation might offset age-related cortical thinning, and data provide the first structural evidence for experience-dependent cortical plasticity associated with meditation practice.

Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice.

It is found that long-term Buddhist practitioners self-induce sustained electroencephalographic high-amplitude gamma-band oscillations and phase-synchrony during meditation, suggesting that mental training involves temporal integrative mechanisms and may induce short-term and long- term neural changes.

Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation

It is demonstrated that a short program in mindfulness meditation produces demonstrable effects on brain and immune function, and suggest that meditation may change brain andimmune function in positive ways and underscore the need for additional research.

Training, maturation, and genetic influences on the development of executive attention.

Overall, the data suggest that the executive attention network appears to develop under strong genetic control, but that it is subject to educational interventions during development.

Prefrontal deficits in attention and inhibitory control with aging.

The results suggest that increased distractibility and impaired sustained attention with aging may be due to altered prefrontal cortex function, and support the loss of prefrontal suppression over the primary auditory regions with aging.

Psychophysiological correlates of the practice of Tantric Yoga meditation.

An episode of sudden autonomic activation was observed that was characterized by the meditator as an approach to the Yogic ecstatic state of intense concentration, challenging the current "relaxation" model of meditative states.

A Voxel-Based Morphometric Study of Ageing in 465 Normal Adult Human Brains

Global grey matter volume decreased linearly with age, with a significantly steeper decline in males, and local areas of accelerated loss were observed bilaterally in the insula, superior parietal gyri, central sulci, and cingulate sulci.

Sustained attention training for unilateral neglect: theoretical and rehabilitation implications.

Eight patients suffering from chronic left unilateral neglect were trained to sustain their attention by a self-alerting procedure partially derived from Meichenbaum's self-instructional methods, and statistically significant improvements in unilateral neglect as well in sustained attention were found following onset of sustained attention training, without corresponding improvements in control measures.