Meditation Experience Associated with Structural Neuroplasticity

Abstract

Variations in the arterial pattern of the upper limb are very common as observed in many cadaveric and angiographic studies. Knowledge of variations in the origin and course of the radial artery is important because they are used for many diagnostic procedures as well as vascular and reconstructive surgeries like coronary angiography, percutaneous coronary intervention and coronary artery bypass surgery. During routine dissection in our institute, we observed a case of high origin of the radial artery in a 33 year old male cadaver. It was found to be unilateral; on left side, radial artery was taking origin from 3 rd part of the axillary artery at the lower border of pectoralis minor before the origin of subscapular artery and anterior circumflex humeral artery. It had a superficial course in the arm crossing the median nerve from medial to lateral side. The further course of this superficial radial artery in the forearm was normal and it terminated by forming a deep Palmar arch in hand. These variations may be of great clinical implications for vascular and plastic surgeons and radiologists. Superficial course of radial artery makes it vulnerable to accidental injuries and elevates the risk of bleeding.

Brain activity, underlying mood and the environment: A systematic review

“…Practices such as meditation (e.g. mindfulness) have been shown to alter amygdala and hippocampus activity and positively affect associated mood and emotional responses (Hatchard et al, 2017;Kral et al, 2018;Leung et al, 2018;Saleem & Samudrala, 2017). This suggests that in typically uncomfortable environments, practices such as mindfulness may be able to promote fewer amygdala and hippocampal responses associated with negative emotional states, and possibly the negative emotional states themselves.…”

Sustained modulation of emotion-related fibers after 8 weeks of mindfulness-based stress reduction training

“…Mental learning and training have been demonstrated to modulate the gray matter and white matter (Chapman et al 2015;Saleem and Samudrala 2017;Zatorre et al 2012). Tang et al (2010) reported that 11 h of IBMT can induce changes in the FA values of the white matter tracts connecting the anterior cingulate cortex in meditation novices.…”

Subcortical restructuring as a function of multilingualism: Insights from monolinguals, bilinguals, trilinguals and quadrilinguals

“…The shapes and forms of neuroplasticity have been documented for a range of cognitively challenging tasks where the brain adapts to new experiences and demands. These tasks include meditation, music training, video-gaming, navigational training, and literacy among others, where grey matter regions and white matter tracts relevant for the tasks undergo adaptations (Brilliant et al, 2019;Olszewska et al, 2021;Resende et al, 2018;Saleem & Samudrala, 2017). The use of an additional language is akin to honing a cognitively challenging skill associated with the acquisition, processing, and control of multiple languages.…”