Two dissociable axes of brain hierarchical dynamics track universal and population-specific effects of mindfulness
Victor Oswald, David Zarka, Riku Johannes Ihalainen, Gulshan Kumar, Rikkert Hindriks, Auretta Sonia Kummar, Helen Correia, Hakuei Fujiyama, Saketh Malipeddi, Ravindra P. Nagendra, Arun Sasidharan, Bindu M Kutty, Steven Laureys, Prejaas K.b. Tewarie
arXiv Preprint Archive October 14, 2026 preprint
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational cohort with longitudinal intervention component |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 141 |
| Population | Healthy meditators and trauma-exposed individuals across three complementary cohorts |
| Interventions | Mindfulness-based intervention meditation practice |
| Duration | 8-week mindfulness-based intervention |
| Measures | Temporal Irreversibility Index, Hidden Markov Model, attentional presence in daily life |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Q-bio.nc |
| Key findings | Cumulative meditation practice is associated with a pan-cerebral reduction in the exploratory breadth of hierarchical brain dynamics, tracking dose-dependently with lifetime practice hours. An 8-week mindfulness-based intervention reduced temporal persistence in healthy meditators but increased it in trauma-exposed individuals, suggesting comparable protocols engage distinct network mechanisms depending on baseline clinical status. |
Abstract
How mental training reshapes the temporal architecture of large-scale brain dynamics and how these mechanisms differ between healthy and clinically vulnerable populations remains poorly understood. Time-averaged neural measures collapse the multi-scale nature of brain activity, obscuring the dynamic processes through which behavioural interventions reorganise hierarchical brain function. Here, applying a sliding-window Temporal Irreversibility Index to source-reconstructed EEG across three complementary cohorts (n = 141), we decompose hierarchical brain trajectories into three orthogonal temporal descriptors and uncover two dissociable, mechanistically interpretable axes of intervention-induced plasticity. Cumulative meditation practice drives a universal, pan-cerebral reduction in the exploratory breadth of hierarchical dynamics, tracking dose-dependently with lifetime hours of practice. Temporal persistence is bidirectionally tuned by 8-week mindfulness-based interventions in a population-specific way: reduced in healthy meditators but increased in trauma-exposed individuals, revealing that comparable MBI protocols engage qualitatively distinct network mechanisms depending on baseline clinical status. A joint Hidden Markov Model further links these dynamical shifts to distinct microstate substrates, and longitudinal changes selectively track improvements in a single facet of mindfulness, attentional presence in daily life. Together, these findings establish a mechanistic framework for how behavioural training reorganises non-equilibrium brain dynamics, with direct implications for tailoring mindfulness-based interventions to individual clinical profiles.
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 |