Effect of one‐session focused attention meditation on the working memory capacity of meditation novices: A functional near‐infrared spectroscopy study

Abstract

Introduction: Previous studies have revealed that one-session focused attention meditation (FAM) can improve top-down attention control, which is one of the factors of working memory capacity (WMC). In addition, FAM shares various neural substrates, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), with WMC. Thus, we hypothesized that one-session FAM would improve WMC by activating the DLPFC evoked by the top-down attention control. In this study, we examined whether FAM modified WMC in individuals with little to no meditation experience. Methods:The participants were randomly assigned to either the FAM group (N = 13) or the control group (N = 17) who engaged in random thinking (i.e., mind-wandering).Before and after each 15-min intervention, the participants' WMC was measured according to the total number of correct answers in the Reading Span Test. During each intervention, functional near-infrared spectroscopy was employed to measure the blood flow in the participants' DLPFC and determine the top-down attention control effect.Results: In the FAM group, WMC increased, and the bilateral DLPFC was activated during the intervention. As for the control group, WMC decreased after the intervention, and the bilateral DLPFC was not activated during the intervention. A correlation was also found among all participants between the increase in WMC and the activation of the bilateral DLPFC. Conclusion:The study findings suggest that top-down attention control during FAM can activate the bilateral DLPFC and increase WMC among meditation novices. K E Y W O R D Sdorsolateral prefrontal cortex, focused attention meditation, near-infrared spectroscopy, working memory capacityThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Effect of Trataka (Yogic Visual Concentration) on the Performance in the Corsi-Block Tapping Task: A Repeated Measures Study

“…Earlier studies on meditation for a total duration of 8 weeks shown decreased negative mood and enhanced attention, working memory, and decreased state anxiety on the trier social stress test (TSST) in population naive to meditation practice (Basso et al, 2019). Another focused attention meditation showed significant improvement in working memory in the reading span test and in activation of bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during the intervention in the experimental group (Yamaya et al, 2021). Similarly, other Yoga interventions showed improved cognitive communicative abilities (Namratha et al, 2017).…”

Temporal Changes in the State Effect of Meditation on Response Inhibition Processes

“…Additionally, the participants were instructed to focus on a point in front of them, to breathe naturally, not to move their bodies, and not to sleep. They were also instructed to restart counting the number of breaths if they had lost track of them (e.g., forgot to count, repeated the same number, or skipped a number) (Yamamoto & Nomura, 2010;Yamaya et al, 2021). The participants performed FAM for 10 min.…”

“…The participants performed FAM for 10 min. This meditation dose was decided because a previous study found several participants had fallen asleep during a 15-min FAM (Yamaya et al, 2021).…”

“…It can be observed irrespective of the presence or absence of meditation experience (Cahn & Polich, 2006;Fingelkurts et al, 2016). The state effect of naïve meditators is expressed in the improvement of response inhibition processes (Colzato et al, 2016;Wenk-Sormaz, 2005), working memory capacity (Yamaya et al, 2021), and working memory performance (Ma et al, 2021). Provided that FAM may be utilized by a variety of people in the future, the state effect observed even in beginners seems important.…”

Meditation attenuates Default-mode activity: a pilot study using ultra-high strength MRI

“…Consequently, this poses a challenge in ascertaining the real-world impact of meditating inside an MRI scanner, and whether participants, especially beginners, can follow the meditation instructions as expected in the scanner. Preliminary evidence shows that a single brief session of meditation outside the MRI scanner can have positive effects on mindfulness levels (Johnson et al, 2015; Kim et al, 2019; Mrazek et al, 2012), mood (Broderick, 2005; Johnson et al, 2015), habitual psychological patterns (Wenk-Sormaz, 2005), emotion regulation (Arch & Craske, 2006), stress (Mohan et al, 2011), working memory (Yamaya et al, 2021), and executive function (Müller et al, 2021). However, it is unclear how a single-session of meditation inside the MRI scanner affects behaviour over time outside the scanner.…”