Cerebral blood flow differences between long-term meditators and non-meditators |
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| Authors: | Andrew B. Newberg Nancy Wintering Mark R. Waldman Daniel Amen Dharma S. Khalsa Abass Alavi |
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| Affiliation: | a Division of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, United States;b Center for Spirituality and the Mind, University of Pennsylvania, United States;c Amen Clinics Inc., Newport Beach, CA, United States;d Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation, Tucson, AZ, United States |
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| Abstract: | We have studied a number of long-term meditators in previous studies. The purpose of this study was to determine if there are differences in baseline brain function of experienced meditators compared to non-meditators. All subjects were recruited as part of an ongoing study of different meditation practices. We evaluated 12 advanced meditators and 14 non-meditators with cerebral blood flow (CBF) SPECT imaging at rest. Images were analyzed with both region of interest and statistical parametric mapping. The CBF of long-term meditators was significantly higher (p < .05) compared to non-meditators in the prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex, thalamus, putamen, caudate, and midbrain. There was also a significant difference in the thalamic laterality with long-term meditators having greater asymmetry. The observed changes associated with long-term meditation appear in structures that underlie the attention network and also those that relate to emotion and autonomic function. |
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| Keywords: | Meditation Cerebral blood flow SPECT Attention Beliefs |
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