Psychology - A Sampling and Summary of the Neurological and Psychological Research on Meditation

This is a small sampling of some of the recent research that has been done on the efficacy of meditation practice. I have tried my best to summarize the findings in a way that is understandable to a laymen (like myself) with misrepresenting anything, while bolstering my assessment with quotations from the abstract and results sections of the articles in question.



“Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation.”
-Non-Monastic, Immune System
Davidson R.J., Kabat-Zinn J., Schumacher J., Rosenkranz M., Muller D., Santorelli S.F., Urbanowski F., Harrington A., Bonus K., Sheridan J.F.
Psychosomatic Medicine, 2003 Jul-Aug
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12883106
Examined the effects of an influenza vaccine on two groups of people, one that had undergone an eight week meditation course and another that did not. The study found “significant increases in left-sided anterior activation, a pattern previously associated with positive affect, in the meditators compared with the nonmeditators. We also found significant increases in antibody titers to influenza vaccine among subjects in the meditation compared with those in the wait-list control group. Finally, the magnitude of increase in left-sided activation predicted the magnitude of antibody titer rise to the vaccine.” Showing “that a short program in mindfulness meditation produces demonstrable effects on brain and immune function.”

“Buddha's Brain: Neuroplasticity and Meditation.”
-Monastic, Focused attention meditation, Open monitoring meditation, Tibetan Buddhism, Signal processing, Neuroplasticity
Richard J. Davidson, Director and Antoine Lutz, Associate Scientist
IEEE Signal Process Mag. 2008 Jan 1; 25(1): 176–174.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2944261/
Examined the neuroplasticity, or "brain changes that occur in response to experience... from the growth of new connections to the creation of new neurons", in Tibetan Buddhist monks engaged in long term open monitoring and focused attention meditation. The findings indicated numerous differences in the brain structures of these monks in comparison to normal people, including “alterations in patterns of brain function assessed with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), changes in the cortical evoked response to visual stimuli that reflect the impact of meditation on attention, and alterations in amplitude and synchrony of high frequency oscillations that probably play an important role in connectivity among widespread circuitry in the brain.”

“Cortical Thickness and Pain Sensitivity in Zen Meditators.”
-Non-Monastic, Zen Meditation, Pain Sensitivity
Grant J.A., Courtemanche J., Duerden E.G., Duncan G.H., Rainville P.
Emotion, 2010, February 10th
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20141301
Used MRI scans to examine the pain sensitivity of 17 Zen meditation practitioners against 18 control subjects. “Meditators had significantly lower pain sensitivity than controls. Assessed across all subjects, lower pain sensitivity was associated with thicker cortex in affective, pain-related brain regions including the anterior cingulate cortex, bilateral parahippocampal gyrus and anterior insula. Comparing groups, meditators were found to have thicker cortex in the dorsal anterior cingulate and bilaterally in secondary somatosensory cortex. More years of meditation experience was associated with thicker gray matter in the anterior cingulate, and hours of experience predicted more gray matter bilaterally in the lower leg area of the primary somatosensory cortex as well as the hand area in the right hemisphere. Results generally suggest that pain sensitivity is related to cortical thickness in pain-related brain regions and that the lower sensitivity observed in meditators may be the product of alterations to brain morphometry from long-term practice.”

“The Effect of Mindfulness Meditation on Painful Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy in Adults older than 50 years.”
-Non-Monastic, Pain, Diabetic Neuropathy
Teixeira E
Holistic Nursing Practice, September-October 2010
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20706089
Pilot study examined the effects of mindfulness as a relief mechanism for 20 patients with Diabetic Neuropathy, ten in each group. While there were no significant findings, “differences between the means were found on 2 constructs: pain quality of life and symptom-related quality of life.”

“The Enhancement of Visuospatial Processing Efficiency through Buddhist Deity Meditation”
-Monastic, Diety meditation, Open presence meditation, Tibetan Buddhism
Maria Kozhevnikov, Olga Louchakova, Zoran Josipovic, and Michael A. Motes
Psychological Science, 2009
http://nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/mkozhevnlab/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Kozhevnikov_etal_meditation_2009.pdf
Tibetan monks were split into two groups based on their meditation preference, Deity Yoga meditators “(focused attention on an internal visual image)” and Open Presence meditators “(evenly distributed attention, not directed to any particular object)”. They then performed computerized mental-imagery tasks both before and after meditation and compared against a control group that either rested or performed tasks during the intervals. “The results indicate that all the groups performed at the same baseline level, but after meditation, Deity Yoga practitioners demonstrated adramatic increase in performance on imagery tasks comparedwith the other groups. The results suggest that Deity meditation specifically trains one’s capacity to accessheightened visuospatial processing resources, rather than generally improving visuospatial imagery abilities.”

“Influence of Meditation on Anti-Correlated Networks in the Brain”
-Non-Monastic, Focused Attention Meditation, Non-Dual Awareness, Functional Connectivity, Cerebral Cortex, Anti-Correlated Networks
Zoran Josipovic, Ilan Dinstein, Jochen Weber, and David J. Heeger
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2012, January 3rd
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3250078/#
Examined the neurological differences between people engaged in non-meditative fixed attention, Non-Dual Awareness, and Focused Attention Meditation. The “results suggest that the anti-correlation found between extrinsic and intrinsic systems is not an immutable property of brain organization and that practicing different forms of meditation can modulate this gross functional organization in profoundly different ways.”

“Meditation Effects within the Hippocampal Complex Revealed by Voxel-Based Morphometry and Cytoarchitectonic probabilistic mapping”
-Non-Monastic, Long Term Meditation Practitioners, Gray Matter
Eileen Luders, Florian Kurth, Arthur W. Toga, Katherine L. Narr, and Christian Gaser
Frontiers in Psychology,  2013, July 9th
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705194/
Compared the gray matter characteristics of 50 people possessing long term meditation experience (~20 years) from various schools and traditions with 50 people lacking meditation experience. They found “significant meditation effects in the vicinity of the hippocampus, showing more GM in meditators than in controls as well as positive correlations with the number of years practiced” and “significant meditation effects were observed within the subiculum specifically. Since the subiculum is known to play a key role in stress regulation and meditation is an established form of stress reduction, these GM findings may reflect neuronal preservation in long-term meditators”.

“Mindfulness Practice Leads to Increases in Regional Brain Gray Matter Density.“
-Non-Monastic, Inexperienced Meditation Practitioners, Gray Matter, MRI
Hölzel BK, Carmody J, Vangel M, Congleton C, Yerramsetti SM, Gard T, and Lazar SW
Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 2011 Jan 30
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21071182
Examined the changes in the magnetic resonance images of the brains of “16 healthy, meditation-naïve participants” before and after an 8 week meditation program, comparing them with a control group of 17 people who did not undergo this training. “Analyses in a priori regions of interest confirmed increases in gray matter concentration within the left hippocampus. Whole brain analyses identified increases in the posterior cingulate cortex, the temporo-parietal junction, and the cerebellum in the MBSR group compared with the controls. The results suggest that participation in MBSR is associated with changes in gray matter concentration in brain regions involved in learning and memory processes, emotion regulation, self-referential processing, and perspective taking.”

“Neural Correlates of Nondual Awareness in Meditation.”
-Monastic, Dualistic thinking, Tibetan Buddhism
Zoran Josipovic
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24033505
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2014, January
Examined the neurological impact of Non-Dual Awareness (NDA) in Tibetan Buddhist monks. Non-Dual Awareness references the state of mind where the largely arbitrary separations that often characterize human thought (self and other, the distinctions of objects being solid, clearly differentiated blocks of matter) are no longer present or are less rigidly adhered to. Study suggests the “involvement of a precuneus network in NDA.”

“The Neural Substrates of Mindfulness: An fMRI Investigation.”
-Non-Monastic, fMRI
Ives-Deliperi V.L., Solms M., Meintjes E.M.
Social Neuroscience, 2010, September 9th
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20835972
Used fMRI scans to examine the brains of people engaged in mindfulness practice. Found that “significant signal decreases were observed during mindfulness meditation in midline cortical structures associated with interoception, including bilateral anterior insula, left ventral anterior cingulate cortex, right medial prefrontal cortex, and bilateral precuneus. Significant signal increase was noted in the right posterior cingulate cortex. These findings lend support to the theory that mindfulness achieves its positive outcomes through a process of disidentification.”

“Neurocognitive and Somatic Components of Temperature Increases During g-Tummo Meditation: Legend and Reality”
-Monastic, Tummo meditation, Tibetan Buddhism, Temperature regulation, Electroencephalographic monitoring
Maria Kozhevnikov, James Elliott, Jennifer Shephard, and Klaus Gramann
PLOS ONE, 2013, March 29th
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0058244
Examined the ability of Tibetan Buddhist monks engaged in Tummo meditation to control their bodily temperature. Consisting of two studies, one performed on experienced Tibetan Buddhist monks in the Himalayas and the other on students with no meditation experience, who were given and instructed in the use of the Tibetan vase breathing techniques. The axillary temperature and electroencephalographic (EEG) activity were then observed in both groups. They found that both the breathing system and the Tummo meditation contributed to the bodiliy regulation, and that “the neurocognitive component (meditative visualization)… aids in sustaining temperature increases for longer periods.”