Qigong Institute

Author: Conklin QA¹, King BG², Zanesco AP², Lin J³, Hamidi AB⁴, Pokorny JJ⁵, Jesús Álvarez-López M⁶, Cosín-Tomás M⁶, Huang C³, Kaliman P⁷, Epel ES⁸, Saron CD⁹
Affiliation:
¹Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, 267 Cousteau Place, Davis, CA 95618, United States; Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, 135 Young Hall, Davis, CA 95616, United States. Electronic address: qconklin@ucdavis.edu.
²Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, 267 Cousteau Place, Davis, CA 95618, United States; Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, 135 Young Hall, Davis, CA 95616, United States.
³Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, 600 16th St, San Francisco, CA 94158, United States.
⁴Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, 267 Cousteau Place, Davis, CA 95618, United States; Center for Neuroscience, University of California, Davis, 1544 Newton Court, Davis, CA 95618, United States.
⁵Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, 267 Cousteau Place, Davis, CA 95618, United States.
⁶Unit of Pharmacology, Institute of Biomedicine, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, 08028, Spain.
⁷Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, 267 Cousteau Place, Davis, CA 95618, United States; Unit of Pharmacology, Institute of Biomedicine, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, 08028, Spain.
⁸Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, 401 Parnassus Ave, San Francisco, CA 94131, United States.
⁹Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, 267 Cousteau Place, Davis, CA 95618, United States; MIND Institute, University of California, Davis Medical Center, 2825 50th St, Sacramento, CA 95817, United States.
Conference/Journal: Brain Behav Immun.
Date published: 2018 Mar 5
Other: Pages: S0889-1591(18)30047-3 , Special Notes: doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2018.03.003. [Epub ahead of print] , Word Count: 242

A growing body of evidence suggests that meditation training may have a range of salubrious effects, including improved telomere regulation. Telomeres and the enzyme telomerase interact with a variety of molecular components to regulate cell-cycle signaling cascades, and are implicated in pathways linking psychological stress to disease. We investigated the effects of intensive meditation practice on these biomarkers by measuring changes in telomere length (TL), telomerase activity (TA), and telomere-related gene (TRG) expression during a 1-month residential Insight meditation retreat. Multilevel analyses revealed an apparent TL increase in the retreat group, compared to a group of experienced meditators, similarly comprised in age and gender, who were not on retreat. Moreover, personality traits predicted changes in TL, such that retreat participants highest in neuroticism and lowest in agreeableness demonstrated the greatest increases in TL. Changes observed in TRGs further suggest retreat-related improvements in telomere maintenance, including increases in Gar1 and HnRNPA1, which encode proteins that bind telomerase RNA and telomeric DNA. Although no group-level changes were observed in TA, retreat participants' TA levels at post-assessment were inversely related to several indices of retreat engagement and prior meditation experience. Neuroticism also predicted variation in TA across retreat. These findings suggest that meditation training in a retreat setting may have positive effects on telomere regulation, which are moderated by individual differences in personality and meditation experience. (ClinicalTrials.gov #NCT03056105).

KEYWORDS: Cell aging; Meditation; Neuroticisminsight Meditation; Personality; Telomerase; Telomere Biology; Telomere length

PMID: 29518528 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2018.03.003

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Insight Meditation and Telomere Biology: The Effects of Intensive Retreat and the Moderating Role of Personality.