Exploring the embodied mind: functional connectome fingerprinting of meditation expertise

Abstract

Short mindfulness-based interventions have gained traction in research due to their positive impact on well-being, cognition, and clinical symptoms across various settings. However, these short-term trainings are viewed as preliminary steps within a more extensive transformative path, presumably leading to long-lasting trait changes. Despite this, little is still known about the brain correlates of meditation traits. To address this gap, we investigated the neural correlates of meditation expertise in long-term Buddhist practitioners, comparing the large-scale brain functional connectivity of 28 expert meditators with 47 matched novices. Our hypothesis posited that meditation expertise would be associated with specific and enduring patterns of functional connectivity present during both meditative (open monitoring/open presence and loving-kindness compassion meditations) and non-meditative resting states, as measured by connectivity gradients. Our finding revealed a trend toward the overall contraction in the gradient cognitive hierarchy in experts versus novices during open presence meditation. The signature of expertise was further characterized by an increased integration of large-scale brain networks, including the somatomotor, dorsal and ventral attention, limbic and frontoparietal networks, which correlated with a higher ability to create psychological distance with thoughts and emotions. Applying a support vector classifier to states not included in training, we successfully decoded expertise as a trait, demonstrating that its non-state-dependent nature. Such heightened integration of bodily maps with affective and attentional networks in meditation experts could point toward a signature of the embodied cognition cultivated in these contemplative practices.

Towards an Active Inference Account of Deep Meditative Deconstruction

“…This is because both psychedelics (R. Carhart-Harris et al, 2014;R. L. Carhart-Harris, 2018) and meditation (Kakumanu et al, 2018;Vivot et al, 2020;Czajko et al, 2023) have been found to increase brain entropy. Increased entropy (here with regard to psychedelics) is thought to reflect a key phase of the process by which insight occurs.…”