More meditation experience is associated with lasting changes in functional connectivity within brain attentional networks, even when not meditating. Experienced meditators showed increased connectivity within attentional networks and between attentional regions and medial frontal areas compared to less experienced meditators. These neural changes may underlie improved cognitive skills, such as maintaining attention and disengaging from distraction, that are often reported with meditation practice. Because altered connectivity was observed during rest, this suggests a transfer of cognitive abilities into daily life.
A model of naturalistic cognitive fluctuations between mind wandering and attentional states, derived from focused attention meditation, proposes four intervals in a cognitive cycle: mind wandering, awareness of mind wandering, shifting of attention, and sustained attention. Fourteen meditation practitioners performed breath-focused meditation during fMRI scanning, pressing a button when they realized their mind had wandered. Mind wandering was associated with default mode activity, awareness of mind wandering with salience network regions, and shifting and sustained attention with executive network elements. Activations were modulated by lifetime meditation experience, supporting theories about cognitive correlates of distributed brain networks.