Disentangling functional connectivity effects of age and expertise in long-term meditators

Abstract

words)The effects of intensive meditation practices on the functional and structural organization of the human brain have been addressed by a growing number of neuroscientific studies. However, the different modulations of meditation expertise and of ageing, in the underlying brain areas and networks, have not yet been fully elucidated. These effects should be distinguished in order to clarify how long-term meditation can modulate the connectivity between brain areas. To address this issue, we tested whether meditation expertise and age can be predicted from the multivariate pattern of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging connectivity, in Theravada Buddhist monks with long-term practice in two different meditation forms: Focused Attention (FA) and Open Monitoring (OM).We found that functional connectivity patterns in both meditation forms can be used to predict expertise and age of long-term meditators. Our findings suggest that meditation expertise is associated with meditation-specific brain networks modulations, while age-related modifications are general and independent from the meditation type. Specifically, expertise modulated patterns during FA meditation include nodes and connections implicated in focusing, sustaining and monitoring attention, while the predictive patterns during OM meditation include nodes associated with cognitive and affective monitoring. Thus, the two forms of meditation may differentially contribute to counteract the effects of neurocognitive decline with ageing by neuroplasticity of brain networks.

Differences in Brain Connectivity of Meditators during Assessing Neurocognition via Gamified Experimental Logic Task: A Machine Learning Approach

“…This could be due to spontaneous visualization with eyes open or closed in long-term practitioners. 36 These regions are found to be highly functionally connected to areas of cognition in LTP as is seen with the positive connectivity between visual occipital and occipital fusiform gyrus with frontal eye field (FEF) regions. The rostral prefrontal cortex (rPFC) relates to the processing of complex abstract information and is positively correlated to the supra calcarine cortex which also corresponds to the visual field.…”

Machine Learning based Classification of Meditators using Functional Connectivity over Resting State Networks

“…They found expertiserelated brain networks were meditation specific like regions of attention and affective monitoring. The brain networks associated with age were independent of the meditation type [14]. Likewise, there are studies on Rajayoga meditation carried out with respect to physiological and psychological parameters [9,15,16,17].…”