A multimarker study of the effects of meditation on well-being, health, and brain structure and function

Details

Supervisors

de Timary, Philippe ; Kupers, Ron

Faculty

Faculté de pharmacie et des sciences biomédicales

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences biomédicales, à finalité approfondie

Abstract

Study 1: The effects of long-term meditation on cognitive emotion regulation, interoceptive awareness and brain structures. Psychological and physiological mechanisms underlying the favorable effects of meditating have been increasingly investigated in different fields of study. However, no known study to date has investigated the interactions between cognitive, neural and physical modulations in meditators. Highlight potential correlations between these modulated factors is therefore the main objective of the project. In this project, I have had been involved in bibliographical researches and statistical analysis of MRI and behavioral data from a group of heartfulness long-term meditators (N= 50) and a control group (N= 37). The objective was to evaluate the role of long-term meditation on two cognitive functions known to be modulated by meditation practice – emotion regulation (ER) and interoceptive awareness (IA) – and their related neuroanatomical areas. In line with our hypotheses, meditators reported to use more effective emotion regulation strategies and showed a higher level of interoceptive awareness than controls. We also found brain structure modulations among meditators. According to the close intercorrelations we found between these variables, we suggested that long-term meditation may influence the emotion regulation system by regulating the level of IA and by modulating cortical structures in the temporal and the parietal lobe as well as in the cingulate and orbitofrontal cortices. Study 2: Psychological responses and impact over the CoViD-19 pandemic: the implication of meditation practice. As the same time as the main project, a behavioral study was been launched to investigate the role of meditation practice on psychological responses and impact during the CoViD-19 pandemic. Given the identification of enhanced emotion regulation (ER) among long-term meditators, we hypothesized that meditation promotes the use of adaptive emotion regulation (ER) strategies which helps to better cope with pandemic-induced distress and intolerance of uncertainty (IU). To test this hypothesis, an online survey was designed to assess demographic and lifestyle variables, CoViD-19 pandemic associated factors and psychometric variables. A total of 895 responses were collected between mid-June and mid-September 2020. Analyses were performed by comparing a control (N = 331; 37%) group and a meditator (N = 564; 63%) group. As expected, we found a greater dispositional use of adaptive ER and lower levels of IU among meditators, both correlating to low psychological distress. However, no group differences were found in psychological distress over the course of the pandemic. We proposed that the dispositional use of maladaptive ER and avoidance behavior for coping with the pandemic were predictors of mental health impairments caused by the crisis in the two groups but could be reduced after several years of meditation.