Neural correlates of focused attention and cognitive monitoring in meditation.
Antonietta Manna, Antonino Raffone, Mauro Gianni Perrucci, Davide Nardo, Antonio Ferretti, Armando Tartaro, Alessandro Londei, Cosimo Del Gratta, Marta Olivetti Belardinelli, Gian Luca Romani
Brain Research Bulletin April 29, 2010 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainresbull.2010.03.001 (opens in new tab) via PubMed
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractMeditation can be divided into focused attention (FA) and open monitoring (OM) styles, which involve different attentional and awareness processes. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging study, Theravada Buddhist monks expert in both FA and OM meditation, along with novices with 10 days of practice, were scanned. Expert meditators showed massive self-regulation of fronto-parietal and insular areas in the left hemisphere, depending on the meditation state. Anterior cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices played opposing roles in executive control of attention. The findings resolve a controversy about whether meditation involves hypo- or hyperfrontality, and suggest that mental practice reorganizes brain activity patterns, especially in prefrontal cortex and insula.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Functional magnetic resonance imaging study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Theravada Buddhist monks expert in FA and OM meditation, and lay novices with 10 days of meditation practice |
| Key finding | Expert meditators control cognitive engagement by self-regulating fronto-parietal and insular areas in the left hemisphere in a meditation state-dependent fashion, and anterior cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices play antagonist roles in attention control. |
Abstract
Meditation refers to a family of complex emotional and attentional regulatory practices, which can be classified into two main styles - focused attention (FA) and open monitoring (OM) - involving different attentional, cognitive monitoring and awareness processes. In a functional magnetic resonance study we originally characterized and contrasted FA and OM meditation forms within the same experiment, by an integrated FA-OM design. Theravada Buddhist monks, expert in both FA and OM meditation forms, and lay novices with 10 days of meditation practice, participated in the experiment. Our evidence suggests that expert meditators control cognitive engagement in conscious processing of sensory-related, thought and emotion contents, by massive self-regulation of fronto-parietal and insular areas in the left hemisphere, in a meditation state-dependent fashion. We also found that anterior cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices play antagonist roles in the executive control of the attention setting in meditation tasks. Our findings resolve the controversy between the hypothesis that meditative states are associated to transient hypofrontality or deactivation of executive brain areas, and evidence about the activation of executive brain areas in meditation. Finally, our study suggests that a functional reorganization of brain activity patterns for focused attention and cognitive monitoring takes place with mental practice, and that meditation-related neuroplasticity is crucially associated to a functional reorganization of activity patterns in prefrontal cortex and in the insula.