Mining the Mind: Linear Discriminant Analysis of MEG Source Reconstruction Time Series Supports Dynamic Changes in Deep Brain Regions During Meditation Sessions.
Daniela Calvetti, Brian D Johnson, Annalisa Pascarella, Francesca Pitolli, Erkki Somersalo, Barbara Vantaggi
Brain Topography October 15, 2021 DOI: 10.1007/s10548-021-00874-w (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational study Longitudinal Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Experienced Buddhist monks practicing Samatha and Vipassana meditation |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Brain Humans Magnetoencephalography Time factors Insular cortex Spectral analysis Linear discriminant analysis Meg inverse problem Deep sources Activity map |
| Key findings | Linear discriminant analysis separated magnetoencephalography samples from focused attention meditation, open monitoring meditation, and eyes-closed rest, suggesting each state has a distinguishable brain-activity signature. The cingulate cortex, insular cortex, accumbens, caudate, putamen, thalamus, and amygdalae stood out as separating regions, which the authors say seems to correlate with earlier longitudinal findings. |
Abstract
Meditation practices have been claimed to have a positive effect on the regulation of mood and emotions for quite some time by practitioners, and in recent times there has been a sustained effort to provide a more precise description of the influence of meditation on the human brain. Longitudinal studies have reported morphological changes in cortical thickness and volume in selected brain regions due to meditation practice, which is interpreted as an evidence its effectiveness beyond the subjective self reporting. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG) or electroencephalography to quantify the changes in brain activity during meditation practice represents a challenge, as no clear hypothesis about the spatial or temporal pattern of such changes is available to date. In this article we consider MEG data collected during meditation sessions of experienced Buddhist monks practicing focused attention (Samatha) and open monitoring (Vipassana) meditation, contrasted by resting state with eyes closed. The MEG data are first mapped to time series of brain activity averaged over brain regions corresponding to a standard Destrieux brain atlas. Next, by bootstrapping and spectral analysis, the data are mapped to matrices representing random samples of power spectral densities in [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] frequency bands. We use linear discriminant analysis to demonstrate that the samples corresponding to different meditative or resting states contain enough fingerprints of the brain state to allow a separation between different states, and we identify the brain regions that appear to contribute to the separation. Our findings suggest that the cingulate cortex, insular cortex and some of the internal structures, most notably the accumbens, the caudate and the putamen nuclei, the thalamus and the amygdalae stand out as separating regions, which seems to correlate well with earlier findings based on longitudinal studies.
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Using Self-Report Assessment Methods to Explore Facets of Mindfulness Undergraduate students | 2006 | Observational cohort | |
| Effectiveness of a meditation-based stress reduction program in the treatment of anxiety disorders Patients with generalized anxiety disorder or panic disorder with or without agoraphobia | 1992 | Observational cohort | n = 22 |
| Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness Participants with extensive Insight meditation experience and matched controls | 2005 | Observational cohort | n = 20 |
| Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity Experienced meditators and matched meditation-naive controls | 2011 | Observational cohort | |
| Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice Long-term Buddhist practitioners and controls | 2004 | Observational cohort |
Citations in the library
Cited by 2
Cites 61
- Mindfulness training as a clinical intervention: A conceptual and empirical review. Clinical Psychology Science and Practice 2003
- Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness Neuroreport November 7, 2005
- Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences November 23, 2011
- Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences November 8, 2004
- Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences June 28, 2007
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