Long-term Meditation Training Is Associated with Enhanced Subjective Attention and Stronger Posterior...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Meditation Research

Background:

• Mindfulness meditation is linked to improved attention and altered brain connectivity, particularly between the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC).
• Previous studies lacked direct behavioral attention measures and sufficient sample sizes to confirm these findings in long-term practitioners.
• The impact of meditation on local brain function versus large-scale network dynamics remained unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To replicate and extend findings on resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in long-term meditation practitioners.
• To investigate the relationship between brain connectivity and behavioral attention measures.
• To examine network-level connectivity changes associated with long-term mindfulness practice.

Main Methods:

• Recruited 40 long-term meditation practitioners and 124 meditation-naive controls.
• Assessed resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) using neuroimaging techniques.
• Administered a behavioral assay to quantify attention and metacognitive awareness.

Main Results:

• Meditators exhibited stronger PCC-rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (RLPFC) rsFC compared to controls.
• Long-term practitioners showed reduced connector hub strength within the default mode network.
• Subjective attention was better in meditators, correlating positively with PCC-RLPFC connectivity and negatively with default mode network hub strength.

Conclusions:

• Increased PCC-RLPFC rsFC may support attention orienting, a key component of mindfulness.
• Mindfulness meditation appears to strengthen underlying brain networks associated with attention and metacognition.
• Findings suggest long-term practice impacts large-scale brain network dynamics, not just local function.