Neural correlates of breath work, mental imagery of yoga postures, and meditation in yoga practitioners: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study
Frontiers in Neuroscience March 21, 2024 Xiawen Li, Yu Zhou, Chenping Zhang et al.
Long-term yoga practitioners show distinct brain activation patterns compared to short-term practitioners during three core yoga components: breath work, postures, and meditation. During breath work, long-term practitioners had higher blood oxygen levels in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In mental imagery of yoga postures, they reported better mastery and showed lower activation in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. During mindfulness meditation, they exhibited higher blood oxygen levels in the orbitofrontal cortex and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. These findings suggest that long-term practice of each yoga component leads to neural benefits involving efficient prefrontal cortex activation.