Author: Luders E1, Kurth F2
Affiliation: <sup>1</sup>School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand; Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA. Electronic address: e.lueders@auckland.ac.nz.
<sup>2</sup>School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
Conference/Journal: Curr Opin Psychol.
Date published: 2018 Dec 27
Other:
Volume ID: 28 , Pages: 172-178 , Special Notes: doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.12.013. [Epub ahead of print] , Word Count: 117
Meditating is an active mental process that has been proposed to lead to structural changes in the brain, especially if occurring repeatedly, regularly, and over longer periods of time. Thus, meditators might present with a distinctive brain anatomy detectable via modern imaging technologies. This article summarizes findings as reported in the imaging literature when comparing long-term meditators with controls. The morphometric analyses applied include global, regional, and local measures, such as voxel-wise or point-wise estimates. Overall, long-term meditators present with larger (rather than smaller) anatomical measures than controls, which may be indicative of actual meditation-induced changes, pre-existing differences in meditators' brains, or a combination of both.
Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
PMID: 30739005 DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.12.013
keyywords neurobiology