State and Training Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on Brain Networks Reflect Neuronal Mechanisms of Its Antidepressant Effect

The topic of investigating how mindfulness meditation training can have antidepressant effects via plastic changes in both resting state and meditation state brain activity is important in the rapidly emerging field of neuroplasticity. In the present study, we used a longitudinal design investigating resting state fMRI both before and after 40 days of meditation training in 13 novices. After training, we compared differences in network connectivity between rest and meditation using common resting state functional connectivity methods. Interregional methods were paired with local measures such as Regional Homogeneity. As expected, significant differences in functional connectivity both between states (rest versus meditation) and between time points (before versus after training) were observed. During meditation, the internal consistency in the precuneus and the temporoparietal junction increased, while the internal consistency of frontal brain regions decreased. A follow-up analysis of regional connectivity of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex further revealed reduced connectivity with anterior insula during meditation. After meditation training, reduced resting state functional connectivity between the pregenual anterior cingulate and dorsal medical prefrontal cortex was observed. Most importantly, significantly reduced depression/anxiety scores were observed after training. Hence, these findings suggest that mindfulness meditation might be of therapeutic use by inducing plasticity related network changes altering the neuronal basis of affective disorders such as depression.The authors would like to thank the mindfulness meditation training teacher Raúl Balaguer for his kindness for contributing his knowledge to the mindfulness research, Professor Dr. Daniel Pinazo Calatayud for his enthusiastic contribution to initializing the meditation study, Professor Dr. César Ávila for the kind support in fMRI study, Dr. Alfonso Barrós-Loscertales for his full support of research design, data analysis, and paper writing, Dr. Martin Walter for his expertise in clinical affective imaging research and paper preparation, and Viola Borchardt for her kind support in preparing the paper. This study is based on work supported by grants to MINECO (PSI2012-33054) and the Spanish National Drug Strategy (4623/2011) to Alfonso Barrós-Loscertales, as well as Spanish State Secretary of Research MINECO (CSO2012-34066) to Daniel Pinazo and Martin Walter (DFG-SFB779)