Author: Benno Bremer#1,2, Qiong Wu#3,4,5, María Guadalupe Mora Álvarez3,4, Britta Karen Hölzel3,4, Maximilian Wilhelm4,6, Elena Hell7, Ebru Ecem Tavacioglu4,7, Alyssa Torske3,4,8, Kathrin Koch3,4,8
Affiliation: <sup>1</sup> Department of Neuroradiology, School of Medicine, Klinikum Rechts Der Isar, Technical University of Munich, Ismaninger Str. 22, 81675, Munich, Germany. benno.bremer@tum.de.
<sup>2</sup> TUM-Neuroimaging Center (TUM-NIC), Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany. benno.bremer@tum.de.
<sup>3</sup> Department of Neuroradiology, School of Medicine, Klinikum Rechts Der Isar, Technical University of Munich, Ismaninger Str. 22, 81675, Munich, Germany.
<sup>4</sup> TUM-Neuroimaging Center (TUM-NIC), Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
<sup>5</sup> Institute of Medical Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany.
<sup>6</sup> Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany.
<sup>7</sup> Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany.
<sup>8</sup> Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Martinsried, Germany.
Conference/Journal: Sci Rep
Date published: 2022 Aug 2
Other:
Volume ID: 12 , Issue ID: 1 , Pages: 13219 , Special Notes: doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-17325-6. , Word Count: 215
Recent research has begun to identify the neural mechanisms underlying the beneficial impact of mindfulness meditation training (MMT) on health and cognition. However, little is known about the effects of MMT on the global interplay of large-scale networks (LSNs) in the brain. In the present study, healthy, meditation-naïve adults (N = 46) underwent resting state fMRI prior to and upon completing 31 days of MMT or an active control intervention. Independent component analysis, sliding time window, and seed-based correlation analyses were performed to assess training-related changes in functional connectivity (FC) within and between networks with relevance to mindfulness meditation. Across sliding time window analyses and seed-based correlation analyses, we found increased FC between nodes of the default mode network (DMN) and nodes of the salience network (SN) in participants of the MMT. Seed-based correlation analyses revealed further connectivity increases between the SN and key regions of the central executive network (CEN). These results indicate, that, among multiple LSNs, one month of mindfulness meditation effectively increases interconnectivity between networks of the triple network model (DMN, SN, CEN), hereby introducing a potential mechanistic concept underlying the beneficial impact of MMT.Clinical trial registration: This study is listed as a clinical trial on the ISRCTN registry with trial ID ISRCTN95197731 (date of first registration: 15/02/2022).
PMID: 35918449 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-17325-6