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Increased Grey Matter Associated with Long-Term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study

OBJECTIVES: To investigate regional differences in grey matter volume associated with the practice of Sahaja Yoga Meditation. DESIGN: Twenty three experienced practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation and twenty three non-meditators matched on age, gender and education level, were scanned using struct...

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Autores principales: Hernández, Sergio Elías, Suero, José, Barros, Alfonso, González-Mora, José Luis, Rubia, Katya
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4777419/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26938433
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150757
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author Hernández, Sergio Elías
Suero, José
Barros, Alfonso
González-Mora, José Luis
Rubia, Katya
author_facet Hernández, Sergio Elías
Suero, José
Barros, Alfonso
González-Mora, José Luis
Rubia, Katya
author_sort Hernández, Sergio Elías
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: To investigate regional differences in grey matter volume associated with the practice of Sahaja Yoga Meditation. DESIGN: Twenty three experienced practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation and twenty three non-meditators matched on age, gender and education level, were scanned using structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging and their grey matter volume were compared using Voxel-Based Morphometry. RESULTS: Grey matter volume was larger in meditators relative to non-meditators across the whole brain. In addition, grey matter volume was larger in several predominantly right hemispheric regions: in insula, ventromedial orbitofrontal cortex, inferior temporal and parietal cortices as well as in left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and left insula. No areas with larger grey matter volume were found in non-meditators relative to meditators. CONCLUSIONS: The study shows that long-term practice of Sahaja Yoga Meditation is associated with larger grey matter volume overall, and with regional enlargement in several right hemispheric cortical and subcortical brain regions that are associated with sustained attention, self-control, compassion and interoceptive perception. The increased grey matter volume in these attention and self-control mediating regions suggests use-dependent enlargement with regular practice of this meditation.
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spelling pubmed-47774192016-03-10 Increased Grey Matter Associated with Long-Term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study Hernández, Sergio Elías Suero, José Barros, Alfonso González-Mora, José Luis Rubia, Katya PLoS One Research Article OBJECTIVES: To investigate regional differences in grey matter volume associated with the practice of Sahaja Yoga Meditation. DESIGN: Twenty three experienced practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation and twenty three non-meditators matched on age, gender and education level, were scanned using structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging and their grey matter volume were compared using Voxel-Based Morphometry. RESULTS: Grey matter volume was larger in meditators relative to non-meditators across the whole brain. In addition, grey matter volume was larger in several predominantly right hemispheric regions: in insula, ventromedial orbitofrontal cortex, inferior temporal and parietal cortices as well as in left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and left insula. No areas with larger grey matter volume were found in non-meditators relative to meditators. CONCLUSIONS: The study shows that long-term practice of Sahaja Yoga Meditation is associated with larger grey matter volume overall, and with regional enlargement in several right hemispheric cortical and subcortical brain regions that are associated with sustained attention, self-control, compassion and interoceptive perception. The increased grey matter volume in these attention and self-control mediating regions suggests use-dependent enlargement with regular practice of this meditation. Public Library of Science 2016-03-03 /pmc/articles/PMC4777419/ /pubmed/26938433 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150757 Text en © 2016 Hernández et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Hernández, Sergio Elías
Suero, José
Barros, Alfonso
González-Mora, José Luis
Rubia, Katya
Increased Grey Matter Associated with Long-Term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study
title Increased Grey Matter Associated with Long-Term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study
title_full Increased Grey Matter Associated with Long-Term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study
title_fullStr Increased Grey Matter Associated with Long-Term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study
title_full_unstemmed Increased Grey Matter Associated with Long-Term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study
title_short Increased Grey Matter Associated with Long-Term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study
title_sort increased grey matter associated with long-term sahaja yoga meditation: a voxel-based morphometry study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4777419/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26938433
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150757
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