Meditation-induced effects on whole-brain structural and effective connectivity
Brain Structure and Function May 6, 2022 Eleonora de Filippi, Anira Escrichs, Estela Càmara et al. 23 citations
Meditation-related changes in brain dynamics and structure were investigated by scanning experienced meditators and naive controls with MRI during rest and focused-attention meditation. A machine-learning approach showed that effective connectivity (causal relationships between brain regions) was more informative than functional or structural connectivity alone for distinguishing meditators from controls. The most informative effective-connectivity links involved several large-scale networks, predominantly in the left hemisphere. Anatomical differences were smaller but present: meditators had stronger structural connectivity between four left-hemisphere areas belonging to somatomotor, dorsal attention, subcortical, and visual networks. The findings suggest a mechanism linking brain structure and function underlying meditation.