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Repetitive speech elicits widespread deactivation in the human cortex: the “Mantra” effect?

BACKGROUND: Mantra (prolonged repetitive verbal utterance) is one of the most universal mental practices in human culture. However, the underlying neuronal mechanisms that may explain its powerful emotional and cognitive impact are unknown. In order to try to isolate the effect of silent repetitive...

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Autores principales: Berkovich-Ohana, Aviva, Wilf, Meytal, Kahana, Roni, Arieli, Amos, Malach, Rafael
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4511287/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26221571
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/brb3.346
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author Berkovich-Ohana, Aviva
Wilf, Meytal
Kahana, Roni
Arieli, Amos
Malach, Rafael
author_facet Berkovich-Ohana, Aviva
Wilf, Meytal
Kahana, Roni
Arieli, Amos
Malach, Rafael
author_sort Berkovich-Ohana, Aviva
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Mantra (prolonged repetitive verbal utterance) is one of the most universal mental practices in human culture. However, the underlying neuronal mechanisms that may explain its powerful emotional and cognitive impact are unknown. In order to try to isolate the effect of silent repetitive speech, which is used in most commonly practiced Mantra meditative practices, on brain activity, we studied the neuronal correlates of simple repetitive speech in nonmeditators – that is, silent repetitive speech devoid of the wider context and spiritual orientations of commonly practiced meditation practices. METHODS: We compared, using blood oxygenated level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a simple task of covertly repeating a single word to resting state activity, in 23 subjects, none of which practiced meditation before. RESULTS: We demonstrate that the repetitive speech was sufficient to induce a widespread reduction in BOLD signal compared to resting baseline. The reduction was centered mainly on the default mode network, associated with intrinsic, self-related processes. Importantly, contrary to most cognitive tasks, where cortical-reduced activation in one set of networks is typically complemented by positive BOLD activity of similar magnitude in other cortical networks, the repetitive speech practice resulted in unidirectional negative activity without significant concomitant positive BOLD. A subsequent behavioral study showed a significant reduction in intrinsic thought processes during the repetitive speech condition compared to rest. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are compatible with a global gating model that can exert a widespread induction of negative BOLD in the absence of a corresponding positive activation. The triggering of a global inhibition by the minimally demanding repetitive speech may account for the long-established psychological calming effect associated with commonly practiced Mantra-related meditative practices.
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spelling pubmed-45112872015-07-28 Repetitive speech elicits widespread deactivation in the human cortex: the “Mantra” effect? Berkovich-Ohana, Aviva Wilf, Meytal Kahana, Roni Arieli, Amos Malach, Rafael Brain Behav Original Research BACKGROUND: Mantra (prolonged repetitive verbal utterance) is one of the most universal mental practices in human culture. However, the underlying neuronal mechanisms that may explain its powerful emotional and cognitive impact are unknown. In order to try to isolate the effect of silent repetitive speech, which is used in most commonly practiced Mantra meditative practices, on brain activity, we studied the neuronal correlates of simple repetitive speech in nonmeditators – that is, silent repetitive speech devoid of the wider context and spiritual orientations of commonly practiced meditation practices. METHODS: We compared, using blood oxygenated level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a simple task of covertly repeating a single word to resting state activity, in 23 subjects, none of which practiced meditation before. RESULTS: We demonstrate that the repetitive speech was sufficient to induce a widespread reduction in BOLD signal compared to resting baseline. The reduction was centered mainly on the default mode network, associated with intrinsic, self-related processes. Importantly, contrary to most cognitive tasks, where cortical-reduced activation in one set of networks is typically complemented by positive BOLD activity of similar magnitude in other cortical networks, the repetitive speech practice resulted in unidirectional negative activity without significant concomitant positive BOLD. A subsequent behavioral study showed a significant reduction in intrinsic thought processes during the repetitive speech condition compared to rest. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are compatible with a global gating model that can exert a widespread induction of negative BOLD in the absence of a corresponding positive activation. The triggering of a global inhibition by the minimally demanding repetitive speech may account for the long-established psychological calming effect associated with commonly practiced Mantra-related meditative practices. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 2015-07 2015-05-04 /pmc/articles/PMC4511287/ /pubmed/26221571 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/brb3.346 Text en © 2015 The Authors. Brain and Behavior published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Research
Berkovich-Ohana, Aviva
Wilf, Meytal
Kahana, Roni
Arieli, Amos
Malach, Rafael
Repetitive speech elicits widespread deactivation in the human cortex: the “Mantra” effect?
title Repetitive speech elicits widespread deactivation in the human cortex: the “Mantra” effect?
title_full Repetitive speech elicits widespread deactivation in the human cortex: the “Mantra” effect?
title_fullStr Repetitive speech elicits widespread deactivation in the human cortex: the “Mantra” effect?
title_full_unstemmed Repetitive speech elicits widespread deactivation in the human cortex: the “Mantra” effect?
title_short Repetitive speech elicits widespread deactivation in the human cortex: the “Mantra” effect?
title_sort repetitive speech elicits widespread deactivation in the human cortex: the “mantra” effect?
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4511287/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26221571
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/brb3.346
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