medRxiv
October 2, 2026
Pierre Champetier, Anaïs Hamel, Stéphane Rehel et al.
preprint
Abstract Study objectives Aging is associated with increased sleep complaints and changes in sleep architecture, microstructure and rest-activity rhythms. Meditation-based interventions have shown benefits on subjective sleep quality, but their effects on objective sleep parameters remain largely underexplored. This study investigated the effects of an 18-month meditation intervention on sleep...
Scientific Reports
October 28, 2025
Sacha Haudry, Natacha Lambert, Christian Gaser et al.
Meditation is thought to promote healthy aging by improving mental health, preserving brain integrity and reducing Alzheimer's disease risk. We examined the impact of long-term meditation expertise and an 18-month meditation training on brain aging in older adults using machine learning. We included 25 Older Expert Meditators (OldExpMed) with > 20 years of practice and 135 Cognitively...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
September 1, 2025
Jean-Baptiste Maranci, Pierre Champetier, Delphine Oudiette et al.
preprint
Abstract Sleep helps regulate emotions, but it is still unclear whether -and how- the emotions we experience in dreams contribute to this regulation. To uncover the potential function of dream emotions, we must first understand what they are and how they unfold in dreams. The emotional content of dreams has mostly been studied using post-sleep dream reports, which provide a biased and static...
Journal of Sleep Research
July 29, 2025
Pierre Champetier, Anaïs Hamel, Claire André et al.
Meditation practice has been shown to impact resting-state EEG activity in expert meditators, but its benefits on sleep, which is particularly affected with age, are poorly understood. Our aim was to better understand the effects of long-term meditation practice on resting-state EEG and sleep in older adults. Twenty-seven elderly expert meditators (mean age ± SD: 70.7 ± 5.0 years) were compared...
Scientific Reports
May 15, 2025
Florence Requier, Hamed Mohammadi, Harriet Demnitz-King et al.
With aging, slight changes in some cognitive processes can be observed. Therefore, we aimed to assess if meditation expertise is associated with preserved cognition in key domains affected in aging. We used data from two older-adult samples of the Medit-Ageing Age-well Study: 135 non-meditators and 27 expert meditators. We examined group differences in four objective cognitive domains...
Scientific Reports
November 27, 2024
Sacha Haudry, Anne-Laure Turpin, Brigitte Landeau et al.
3 citations
Meditation is a mental training approach that can improve mental health and well-being in aging. Yet the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. The Medit-Ageing model stipulates that three mechanisms - attentional, constructive, and deconstructive - upregulate positive psycho-affective factors and downregulate negative ones. To test this hypothesis, we measured brain structural MRI and...
Scientific Reports
November 2, 2024
Marco Schlosser, Julie Gonneaud, Stefano Poletti et al.
2 citations
Understanding the factors that predict why some individuals perceive to respond more to meditation training than others could impact the development, efficacy, adherence levels, and implementation of meditation-based interventions. We investigated individual-level variables associated with self- and teacher-perceived responsiveness to longer-term meditation training. This study presents a...
JAMA Neurology
October 10, 2022
Gaël Chételat, Antoine Lutz, Olga Klimecki et al.
45 citations
Importance: No lifestyle-based randomized clinical trial directly targets psychoaffective risk factors of dementia. Meditation practices recently emerged as a promising mental training exercise to foster brain health and reduce dementia risk. Objective: To investigate the effects of meditation training on brain integrity in older adults. Design, Setting, and Participants: Age-Well was a...
Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine
April 1, 2021
Greta Mainieri, Jean-Baptiste Maranci, Pierre Champetier et al.
40 citations
To determine the polysomnography characteristics during sleep paralysis, false awakenings, and lucid dreaming (which are states intermediate to rapid eye movement [REM] sleep and wake but exceptionally observed in sleep laboratory). In 5 participants, we captured 5 episodes of sleep paralysis (2 time marked with the ocular left-right-left-right code normally used to signal lucid dreaming, 1...